At any one time there are estimated to be between 300 and 500 young people involved in street life in Vancouver. Although between 40 and 50 per cent, leave the street life each year, the overall figure remains much the same. Living on the street increases the chances of the young person being involved in crime, such as prostitution or theft, and of suffering from drug addiction, violent assault or HIV. However, for many young people the street is preferable to what they have left behind. And even when living on the street becomes too difficult, getting off the street often appears impossible. This thesis considers one way of addressing the problems faced by young people on the street: the use of legal rights. In particular, it considers the limits on such young people using rights. First, under the two main theories of rights for children, the content of the rights is decided by adults on behalf of the child. Second, the liberal form of rights further restricts their use by street-involved youth due to the anti-statist and atomistic nature of this version of rights. Third, the dominant discourse of childhood constrains the use of rights by imposing familial structures on young people on the street and ignoring their views. Rather than suggesting new rights for street-involved youth, this thesis concentrates on strategies that might be of use for street-involved youth in overcoming these constraints. These are giving an active voice to young people; insisting that the individual characteristics of street-involved youth are taken fully into account; considering a variety of actions, some of which might seem contradictory, but which allow for maximum flexibility; trusting the decisions of young people on the street; and ensuring that street-involved youth are not seen as an isolated problem, but in the context of a wider picture of other people with similar problems, such as adult street people, lesbian and gay youth, welfare recipients and so on. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

This thesis analyses the past and present realities of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Chile and Canada from a comparative perspective. In Chapter I, the author explains the international human rights and Indigenous peoples' law that provide the theoretical framework behind this study. The political and territorial rights that different international forums have acknowledged to these peoples in recent years are identified. The methodology used in the elaboration of this study, which includes the analysis of documentary data, the case study and the interview methods, is explained. The author describes the objective of this study, characterizing it as applied social research aimed at providing information that can be useful for the transformation process in which the peoples that are subject of this study are involved. In Chapters II and III, the author analyses the rights of Indigenous peoples in Chile and Canada respectively from pre-contact until today. The central aspects of their pre-contact cultures and organizations are described. The author also describes main characteristics of the relationships that were established with Indigenous peoples by the Spanish in Chile and by the French and the English in Canada, and later by the states in the two contexts. Special importance is given to those changes recently introduced in the Indigenous-state relationship in both contexts, focusing on their implications for these peoples' rights. In Chapter IV, the author attempts to expand upon the past and present situation of the Indigenous peoples who live in what is now Canada and Chile by including a case study related to each context: the Pehuenche people of the Alto Bio Bio in Chile and the Nisga'a people of the Nass Valley in Canada. In the last Chapter of this thesis (V) the author concludes that, notwithstanding the changes introduced in recent years in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Chilean and Canadian states, many and significant problems still impede their ability to enjoy the rights they claim. The author acknowledges, nevertheless, that Indigenous peoples in Canada, through different means, including negotiation and litigation, have achieved a much broader recognition of their political and territorial rights today than have the Indigenous peoples in Chile. The legal, political, cultural and economic factors that explain these differences are also highlighted in this final Chapter. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

Thesis (L.L.M.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Law, 2014. / The non-consensual destruction of a nasciturus is a disturbing societal phenomenon that negatively permeates the lived realities of pregnant women with positive maternal intention. These women choose to experience a full term gestation and they choose to give birth to a live and healthy infant. At some point during their gestation they are non-consensually deprived of their choices through active third party violence by commission or passive third party negligence by omission. These women have no legal recourse for their loss, because in South African law, the non-consensual destruction of a nasciturus is not a crime. The nasciturus is not recognised as a victim separate from the pregnant woman despite the manner in which the pregnant woman freely chooses to interpret her pregnancy. The consensual destruction of a nasciturus enjoys legal protection in South African law by virtue of the provisions contained in the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act 92 of 1996. The choice to terminate a pregnancy is therefore legally recognised in South African law, whereas the choice to continue a pregnancy is not legally recognised. Argument is advanced in this dissertation for the legal recognition of the choice to continue a pregnancy by criminalising non-consensual nascitural destruction through the creation of a Choice on Continuation of Pregnancy Act. Non-Consensual nascitural destruction occurs as a result of violence against pregnant women as well as in situations of medical negligence. Empirical data is provided to demonstrate how non-consensual nascitural destruction can occur in medical settings where negligence is suspected. The inherent human need to safeguard and protect the nasciturus has been in existence since time immemorial. Despite this need, in South African law, legal subjectivity, and the ability to be recognised as a separate victim of crime, remain contingent upon a live birth. Evidence suggests that the requirement of live birth in law developed as an evidentiary mechanism and not as a substantive rule of law. Its relevance in circumstances of non-consensual nascitural destruction is doubtful at best. The law in South Africa has failed to take cognisance of the psychosomatic dimensions of personhood and argument is advanced in favour of a nuanced and constitutionally sensitive approach to matters of moral as well as legal personhood. Authentic female autonomy and reproductive freedom requires a re-evaluation of the paradigms that surround nascitural safeguarding and protection, and a transformative approach to constitutional interpretation. The establishment of a legislative scheme to criminalise the nonconsensual destruction of a nasciturus is proposed. Within this legislative scheme certain precautions and fortifications are suggested in order to avoid any potential erosion of the rights of pregnant women who have negative maternal intention. It is demonstrated that it is in fact possible for pregnant women with positive maternal intention and pregnant women with negative maternal intention to both enjoy legal protection without encroaching upon one another’s constitutional rights to reproductive freedom, bodily autonomy and privacy. It is contended that achieving the aforementioned is the final barrier to authentic female reproductive freedom in South Africa.

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The purpose of this dissertation was to compare British policy towards Ireland/Northern Ireland and United States and Canadian Indian policies. Despite apparent differences, it was hypothesized that closer examination would reveal significant similarities. A conceptual framework was provided by the utilization of Hartzian fragment theory and the theory of internal colonialism. Eighteen research questions and a series of questions concerned with the applicability of the theoretical constructs were tested using largely historical data and statistical indices of social and economic development. The research demonstrated that Gaelic-Irish and North American Indian societies came under pressure from, and were ultimately subjugated by colonizing fragments marked by their high level of ideological cohesiveness. In the Irish case the decisive moment was the Ulster fragmentation of the seventeenth century which set in juxtaposition a defiant, uncompromising, zealously Protestant, "Planter" community and an equally defiant, recalcitrant, native Gaelic-Catholic population. In the United States traditional Indian society was confronted by a largely British-derived, single-fragment regime which was characterized by a profound sense of mission and an Indian policy rooted in its liberal ideology. In Canada the clash between two competing settler fragments led to the victory of the British over the French, and the pursuit of Indian policies based on many of the same premises that underlay United States policies. The indigenous populations in each of the cases under consideration suffered enormous loss of land, physical and cultural destruction, racial discrimination, economic exploitation and were stripped of their political independence. They responded through collective violence, by the formation of cultural revitalization movements, and by intense domestic and international lobbying. They continue to exist today as internal colonies of the developed fragment states within which they are subsumed.

This thesis compares the status of upper-class widows in England to Colonial America. The common law traditions in England established dower, which was also used in the American colonies. Dower guaranteed widows the right to one-third of the land and property of her husband. Jointure was instituted in England in 1536 and enabled men to bypass dower and settle a yearly sum on a widow. The creation of jointure was able to proliferate in England due to the cash-centered economy, but jointure never manifested itself in Colonial America because of the land centered economy. These two types of inheritance form the background for the argument that upper-class women in Colonial America had more legal and economical freedoms than their brethren in England.

Texas law regarding the legal status of women and their property rights developed from the mingling of Spanish and English laws. Spanish laws regarding the protection of women's rights developed during the centuries-long Reconquest, when the Spanish Christians slowly took back the Iberian Peninsula from the Moorish conquerors. Women were of special importance to the expansion of Spanish civilization. Later, when Spain conquered and colonized the New World, these rights for women came, too. In the New World, women's rights under Spanish law remained the same as in Spain. Again, the Spanish were spreading their civilization across frontiers and women needed protection. When the Spanish moved into Texas, they brought their laws with them yet again. Archival evidence demonstrates that Spanish laws in early Texas remained essentially unchanged with regard to the status of women. Events in the history of England caused its legal system to develop in a different manner from Spain's. In England, the protection of property was the law's most important goal. With the growth of English common law, husbands gained the right to control their wives's lives in that married women lost all legal identity. When the English legal system crossed the Atlantic and took root in the United States, little changed, especially in the southern states, when migrants from there entered Texas. When these Anglo-American colonists came into contact with Spanish/Mexican laws, they tended to prefer the legal system they knew best. Accordingly, with the creation of the Republic of Texas, and later the state of Texas, most laws derived from English common law. From Spanish laws, legislators adopted only those that dealt with the protection of women, developed on the Spanish frontier, because they were so much more suitable to life in Texas. Later lawmakers and judges used these same laws to protect the family's property from creditors, as well as to advance the legal status of women in Texas.

張曉宇. / "2006年8月" / 論文(哲學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(leaves 139-161). / "2006 nian 8 yue" / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Zhang Xiaoyu. / Lun wen (zhe xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (leaves 139-161). / Chapter 第一章： --- 緒論 --- p.2-8 / Chapter 第二章： --- 前人硏究槪述 --- p.9-22 / Chapter 第三章： --- 宋代在室女的婚姻與嫁妝 / Chapter 第一節： --- 婚姻論財 --- p.23-31 / Chapter 第二節： --- 嫁妝與聘財之意義與分別 --- p.31-40 / Chapter 第四章： --- 宋代「在室女」法律場域中的財產承分形態 / Chapter 第一節： --- 反思法律場域中在室女財產承受的一些前提 --- p.41-51 / Chapter 第二節： --- 在室女財產承分考之一：非戶絶情況下的遺囑分產 --- p.51-64 / Chapter 第三節： --- 在室女財產承分考之二 ：戶絶情況下的分產 --- p.64-78 / Chapter 第四節： --- 在室女財產承分考之三：在室女與命繼子 --- p.78-86 / Chapter 第五節： --- 在室女財產承分考之四：試釋「女合得男之半」 --- p.86-93 / Chapter 第六節： --- 法律場域中的兩點結論 --- p.93-94 / Chapter 第五章： --- 宋代「在室女」其他社會領域中的財產形態 / Chapter 第一節： --- 嫁妝財產的其他形態 --- p.95-110 / Chapter 第二節： --- 工作與家庭中的在室女財產形態 --- p.110-128 / Chapter 第三節： --- 關於在室女財產問題的兩點延伸思考 --- p.128-131 / Chapter 第六章： --- 結語 --- p.132-135 / 附錄一：南宋文集所見婚啓定書 --- p.135-138 / 參考書目： --- p.139-161

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

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