This thesis is concerned with the 1992 attempt to legislate for the introduction into the French civil code of a "trust-like" device, the Fiducie. Through a study of the 1992 Bill's Fiducie, it is hoped to contribute to a socio-theoretical understanding of the workings of French legal culture, in the specific context of this recent confrontation with the common law trust. On the basis of the works of Foucault, Lenoble and Ost, French legal culture will be theoretically constructed as an epistemic entity shaped by two types of discourses: the juridical discourse of sovereignty and the discourse of Governmentality. In the light of the works of Bourdieu and Dezalay, it will be argued that these discourses are connected to the conflictual dynamics of societal fields, identified as the juridical field and the field of Governmentality. As a result of the operation of the juridical discourse of sovereignty, the Fiducie cannot reproduce the dual ownership structure of the trust. This is due in particular to the symbolic potency of the principle of absolute ownership, a product of the juridical discourse of sovereignty. This discourse forms the basis of the French epistemic tradition and is rooted in struggles amongst lawyers for the symbolic authority of law. The second epistemic level relevant to our study is identified as Governmentality, a discourse concerned with the construction of the proper objects, means and ends of government, understood in the broad Foucauldian sense. The Fiducie 's limitations as regards tax planning result from the fiscal provisions of the Bill and the impossibility to fragment ownership rights. Such limitations illustrate the imperative of surveillance in French Governmentality. But the Bill also reflects a contradictory tension towards a more liberal understanding of the Fiducie as a flexible and almost unregulated contractual device destined to compete with the trust on the global market. The conflicting tensions apparent in the legislative formulation of the Fiducie echo struggles within the juridical field and in the governmental field. These struggles involve an emerging elite of international legal experts seeking a dominant position internationally and within their own national fields. On the basis of this analysis, it will be possible to formulate a number of concluding hypotheses as to the reasons for the 1992 Bill's failure and its possible future revival.

This thesis, by evaluating the EU Anti-Corruption Report 2014 and its impact, analyses the development of EU anti-corruption as a policy field. In order to identify key factors that shape anti-corruption policy in Europe, it applies the theory of reflexive governance to anti-corruption policymaking in the EU. The approach of reflexive governance focuses on the new form of interaction between the EU, Member States and Candidate States, in particular the dialogical nature of their relationships and how they influence each other in building ground and incentives for the sustainable development of anticorruption as a policy field. The dissertation begins with an examination of the four stages of the development of anti-corruption as a policy field in the EU so far. Questions are asked about the involvement of non-state actors in anti-corruption policy making and to what extent Member States and Candidate States have involved non-state actors in shaping anti-corruption policy in the national context. The main part of the thesis is devoted to presenting and applying the theory of reflexive governance in analysing the EU Anti-Corruption Report and its impact and achievement in the UK, Romania and Albania. In its last part, the thesis discusses insufficiencies of the EU Anti-Corruption Report 2014 and offers recommendations for future EU Anti-Corruption Reports, in particular by making proposals how the legal framework can be improved in relation to the protection of whistleblowers. The thesis also makes suggestions how the EU, Member States and Candidate States can make further use of reflexive governance in order to enhance their anti-corruption policies.

This thesis compares the implementation of European Council Directive 2000/43 prohibiting discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin in Britain and Germany. In order to shed light on the factors that shape anti-discrimination policy in Europe, it tests the theory that anti-discrimination law and policy making in Europe takes place as a cyclical process of ‘cross-fertilisation’. This policy process is characterised by the interaction between the European and the national level and the influence each level exerts on the other proving inspiration or incentives for the continuous development of anti-discrimination and equality law. In proving this thesis, the study begins with an examination of the coverage and the concepts of the Directive as well as its interaction with existing national approaches providing protection from racial discrimination. Questions are asked about the ability of the Directive to reach its goal of aiding the understanding of racism throughout Europe, of creating common tools to combat it and of instigating action at the European level that aid developments at national level. The main part of the project is devoted to a comparison of the implementation of the Race Directive in the UK and Germany. Since the Directive only constitutes a framework it provides scope for differences in the legal systems to influence the implementation process. The study compares in both countries their original position prior to the drafting of the Directive and assesses the legal and wider implementation of the Directive by analysing the national implementing measures and shifts in national anti-discrimination policy as result of EU equality law in the area of racial discrimination. The study shows that national narratives of race and ethnicity in Germany and the UK shape their discrimination legislation, including proactive approaches to the integration of ethnic minorities. The European anti-race discrimination framework is argued to contain mechanisms through which national implementation outcomes can re-influence European law and policy making, completing the cross-fertilisation cycle.

Human rights remain an ambiguous and complex subject in the European Union. Although the instances of policies involving human rights issues have attained an increasing presence over the past thirty years there has been an institutional reluctance to mould a unified human rights policy worthy of the name. However, the EU's human rights practices have not been constructed in a wholly random way. They have evolved within discrete policy realms along coherent narrative lines. Specifically they have followed a bifurcated pattern. Internally, human rights are contingent. They are often referred to as "fundamental rights" signifying an underlying conception that owns a restricted definition based on a distinct European heritage. Scrutiny is erratic even casual. Enforcement is left to the Courts and other agencies. Externally, the story is different. Human rights are broad in concept. Collective notions of rights are adopted. Scrutiny can be intrusive and effective. Systems of enforcement, increasingly severe in scope and strength, have been applied. Despite the extent of this internal/external bifurcation, little academic or institutional attention has been paid to the subject. This thesis attempts to rectify the omission. In analysing the history of the EU's human rights stories, it details the extent of the bifurcation phenomenon and reveals the genesis of its central discriminatory practice. It claims that by failing to address human rights in its early period other than in mythical terms the EU's discourse provided an environment whereby rights became implicated in the representation of European identity as superior and non- Europe as morally and ethically deficient. EU human rights practice developed with this key understanding imbedded in its narrative structure. A sense of irony, provoked by double-standards and discrimination, thus accompanies the EU's rights discourse rendering the EU's role in rights action suspect and the prospects for one unified policy remote.

Les systèmes juridiques des démocraties libérales reposaient traditionnellement sur une séparation nette entre les fonctions répressives, de règlement des litiges privés, et l’activité administrative. L’Administration devait alors faire appel au juge répressif pour sanctionner la non-application de ses règlements. Les litiges privés étaient, eux, du seul ressort des tribunaux civils. Ces deux digues, élaborées afin de contenir l’action de l’État et inspirées par l’idée que la séparation des fonctions est le meilleur garant des libertés publiques, ont successivement cédé et le droit administratif s’aventure à présent dans des domaines qui lui ont été longtemps interdits. La doctrine de droit administratif, après avoir résisté fermement et s’être opposée ouvertement à ces évolutions, a fini par se résigner à l’attribution d’un pouvoir répressif propre à l’Administration et accepte désormais que « Le temps est définitivement révolu où la solennité des audiences judiciaires pouvait seule conduire le citoyen au châtiment »2. Le juge pénal n’a plus désormais le monopole de la répression et l’Administration cumule dorénavant les pouvoirs de réglementation et de répression. Mais qu’en est-il du juge civil ? Il semble bien que l’ouverture à la concurrence des grands services publics ait amené une innovation dans notre droit administratif puisque le législateur a doté des autorités administratives du pouvoir de résoudre des litiges privés pouvant aller jusqu’à forcer une entreprise privée à contracter. Le bel ordonnancement du droit gagné à force de luttes contre le pouvoir royal le cède aujourd’hui à de nouveaux agencements qui confient de nouvelles prérogatives à l’Administration.

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that the EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights is a promising way to improve the legitimacy of the supranational regime, provided that accession is organised in a well-considered and effective manner. My work tries to find, at least partial, resolution to the problem of the erosion of the EU authority, and is based on the underlying presumption that human rights substantially contribute to the successful functioning of the European polity. Understanding of the human rights environment in the EU is therefore crucial to find remedies to the lack of credibility in its exercise of power. For this reason the EU Human Rights Policy, in its internal realm, in particular the normative-judicial, monitoring, enforcement, and promotion components of the Policy, are examined in great detail. The identified flaws and insufficiencies, regarding both the design and implementation of the Policy in question, lend weight to the view that only a serious, comprehensive, and feasible plan for the reform of the Policy on human rights can provide an answer to the legitimacy problem at the supranational level of governance. But how is this objective best achieved? In this context, the proposal for the EU accession to the ECHR should be understood as a plausible means to rectify the shortcomings of the EU Human Rights Policy, and thus improve its image of the Union as a credible and powerful actor in European affairs. The proposal put forward in this work outlines principles which should govern the human rights reform of the EU and how they should be translated into practical terms. My research is therefore an invitation to a discussion about the role of the European Union, its orientation towards human rights, and its aspirations for the future.

Tasked with enforcing the criminal law against suspected offenders, public prosecutors have traditionally enjoyed broad discretion, which is usually structured by legal and policy guidelines defining rules prosecutors should follow when making their decisions. Basing its analysis upon direct observations and interviews in the two jurisdictions under study, this comparative thesis endeavours to understand how the French and Anglo-Welsh criminal justice systems attempt to combine the necessities of accountability for public prosecution services in modern democratic societies with the flexibility and reactivity needed in the application of the law provided by prosecutorial discretion. There have been few systematic, empirical accounts of the decision-making process of these national prosecution services. This thesis argues that neither system observed achieves a satisfactory balance between accountability and discretion for public prosecutors. In France, although democratic and hierarchical accountability channels are well developed in theory, oversight is weak due to the primacy of the concept of ‘adaptation’ in the legal culture and the strong professional ethos of procureurs as independent judicial officers. In England and Wales, public prosecutors are part of a highly bureaucratic and centralised structure which strictly enforces consistency in prosecutorial decisions at the expense of much discretion and autonomy for individual prosecutors whose responsibility is limited to narrow and repetitive tasks due to the segmentation of the prosecution process. This overbearing accountability structure, coupled with a historical balance of power in favour of the police, appears to prevent prosecutors from making decisions perceived as unpopular with their hierarchy or the police. Finally, pressure on resources and a drive for efficiency in both jurisdictions have resulted in the bureaucratisation of the criminal justice process with part of the prosecution workload being delegated to unqualified staff and minor cases being processed as quickly as possible into a one-size-fits-all system.

This thesis identifies the underlying values of German and English contract law. It establishes that to some extent almost all values are reflected in both jurisdictions but that in many cases the underlying values compete with each other. The thesis identifies the balance of the values in the context of four problem areas namely pre-contractual duties of disclosure (breaking off negotiations), mistake, unfair contract terms and changed circumstances. The thesis concludes that although almost all values are reflected in each system the balance of the values differs significantly. This is important and topical because identifying the balance of the competing values within a jurisdictions and contrasting these to another jurisdiction provides a deeper level of understanding of the courts' decision-making process. The particular questions which the research addresses are twofold, firstly, which values are competing within the context of a particular problem, and secondly, what weight is given to each value in a given context in contrast to the other jurisdiction. In order to address these questions a combination of doctrinal and comparative research methods is adopted. The focus is on the decisions of the respective courts', but doctrinal elements are also explored through the way in which cases were interpreted by academic writers at that particular time, while a functional comparative method is adopted. The work does not aim to create its own theory of contract or try to engage in the theoretical debate of which universal values 'should' apply. The implications of the research findings are that policies at a European level can more accurately identify the core underlying values if they firstly identify the viability of harmonising areas of contract law and at a national level and evaluate potential legislative changes in light of these values. Additionally, identification of the values also allows further research on the desirability of the values to be conducted.