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The thesis answers the following research question: what is the extent of the influence of international law on the construction and application of corporate codes of conduct, what factors determine this influence and through which processes does it occur? The thesis uses a mix of methods: a content analysis study, used to measure the extent to which codes of conduct incorporate international labour standards and the degree to which they have changed over time in this respect; legal research on whether corporations can be liable for violating their codes and how this risk factors in the drafting of codes; and case studies of fifteen retailer corporations, which examine how their codes were created and how they are being applied. The study's findings show there is an influence of international law on the construction and, to a far smaller degree, on the application of codes. The creation and application of codes is a politicised and contested process and codes are based on international law principally due to the pressure exerted by trade unions and NGOs, but also due to reputational risk, commercial pressure and mimicry by corporations. This influence has been selective, with corporations applying provisions in their codes that protect the rights carrying the biggest reputational risks. These findings show the flaws in the current international framework for corporate accountability, which is based on self-regulation through codes and audits. They also raise issue of whether changes, such as a binding international treaty or the creation of more collaborative and inclusive programmes to oversee the application of codes, may be required in order to ensure wider respect for labour rights of workers.

In this project, I look at the work of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and the role that brokers at the organization play in constructing, promoting, and institutionalizing a body of LGBT human rights. While a great deal is being written about the diffusion of LGBT politics and human rights discourses from the Global North, there are few ethnographic analyses of who is doing the exporting, how, and toward what ends. Based on a year of fieldwork in IGLHRC’s New York and Cape Town offices, I look at the history of IGLHRC, the interactions among brokers and how these shape their daily work, how brokers understand their mandate and the hybridity that it so often requires, and how partnership with groups in the Global South, the production, verification, and circulation of information, and the possibilities and constraints of the formal human rights arena all shape the work that brokers do. Ultimately, I conclude that human rights advocacy must be understood holistically if it is to be understood at all. Such advocacy always necessarily involves a degree of theoretical elaboration, promotion, and codification by human rights defenders and NGOs, and focusing exclusively on one or another of these aspects paints a skewed portrait of what it means to work within a human rights framework. Drawing from the anthropology of sexuality, queer theory, literature on brokerage, and interdisciplinary studies of transnational advocacy networks, this project aims to deepen understandings of how LGBT NGOs and the brokers that animate them regularly engage in the construction, promotion, and institutionalization of particular understandings of sexuality and the claims that can be made by sexual subjects globally.

Novelty is a widespread notion that has not been given commensurate critical attention. This research is an ethnographically-inclined exploration of practices surrounding the accomplishment of novelty in an institution for which novelty is a central notion: the patent system of the United Kingdom. The research is based on interviews with patent examiners at the UK patent office, interviews with patent attorneys at various legal firms, and documentary analysis of legislation and numerous legal judgments. The thesis brings to bear themes from Science and Technology Studies and ethnomethodology to assess the extent to which they can account for the practices surrounding novelty in the UK patent system. As a fundamental legal requirement for the patentability of inventions, novelty is a central part of the practices of patent composition, assessment and contestation. Rather than being a straightforward technical criterion, however, novelty is shown to be a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon emerging from interwoven legal, bureaucratic and individual practices. The local resolution of whether or not a given invention is new, and the cross-institutional coherence of novelty as a practicable notion, raise questions concerning ontology, accountability, scale and inconcludability, and provide an opportunity for empirically grounded engagement with these longstanding analytical concerns.

The dissertation solves the empirical puzzle why similar regimes such as Morocco and Jordan vary in their engagement in family law reform between 1999 and 2013. Differences with respect to family law reform in the two monarchies are threefold: the way the reform processes were carried out, the content of the new family codes that were issued in Morocco in 2004 and in Jordan in 2010, and the way the laws were applied. Using Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice as a theoretical framework the dissertation establishes the links between the designs of the legal systems, how reform processes are carried out, the family laws countries end up with, and the way the laws are applied. French and British colonialism had shaped the legal systems of Morocco and Jordan to different degrees, producing a legal system that was unified after independence in Morocco whereas the Jordanian one continued to be divided into regular and religious courts. As a result, Moroccan family courts are less autonomous and more subjected to political decisions than Jordanian sharia courts. The institutional design of both judicial systems affected how family law reform was carried out because those systems contain biases towards different actors who are seen as competent of reforming family law and thus came to influence the reform process. The different access criteria to the juridical fields promote different types of cultural capital, so that actors participating in the process have different preferences regarding the development of the content of family law. In Jordan, the absence of the Jordanian king allowed the sharia court administration to exploit the structural bias in its favour and come to dominate both the process and content of family law reform. For this reason the 2010 Jordanian family law reflects to a lesser extent the demands of women's groups. The absence of the Jordanian king from the reform process demonstrates that change in authoritarian states is not necessarily imposed from above nor is it predetermined from the beginning. The Jordanian reform process saw little engagement from the top-level of the regime and could be classified as a mid-level process. It was led by a government body, the sharia court administration, which however enjoyed relative autonomy from the upper echelon of the regime. By contrast, the Moroccan family law reform was a textbook example of authoritarian politics, the reform being imposed from above and the king playing a leading role during the process. In contrast to the process and content of reform, the application of the reformed law in Morocco challenges the notion of the omnipotent authoritarian regime. While the monarch could impose legislative change, the state is at best partially able to enforce this very law or to impose a consensus over its interpretation. The designs of the legal systems again had an impact here. International law occupies different places in the Moroccan and Jordanian constitutions: Jordanian sharia courts enjoy greater autonomy, reject international law, and thus were able to resist its intrusion.

Unlike in the Ottoman world, the exercise of judicial power in nineteenth century Qajar Iran was not contingent upon formal appointment by the political authority. In accordance with the dominant Ṣūlī theory, it derived from the perceived intellectual ability of a cleric to infer the ruling of God (Ḥukmullāh) from the sources of Twelver Shī'ī law through deductive effort (ijtihād). Like the Ottoman qāḍī, the Qajar Uṣūlī jurist or mujtahid known as Ḥākim-i shar' in a judicial context had both notarial and adjudicative powers. The Qajar jurist could thus authenticate, register, annul legal documents and act as an arbiter in lawsuits. The Qajar jurist could also, however, issue a legal opinion. This was the role of the muftī – a separate judicial office in other parts of the Islamic world. Qajar jurists exercised their extensive judicial powers through a network of informal sharī'a courts, which they came to operate in most Iranian towns and cities largely independent of direct state control. While the notarial aspects of the Qajar sharī'a court have received some scholarly attention, this study aims to investigate the role of the jurist and his ruling (Ḥukm-i shar') in sharī'a litigation (murāfa'a pl. –āt).

The dissertation called Legal education and attempts to reform it in the Czech lands from 1918 until today deals with theoretical and historical views of the legal education system at Czech Legal faculties during the last century. The course of the reforms that have shaped the current state of the Legal faculty is shown in the light of historical development. The subject matter of Legal education is treated from the point of view of the modern approach to the theories of Legal studies. The present trends and new requirements developed after 1989 are taken into account. The conclusion takes into consideration the comparative views of Legal education and brings a complex analysis of the given problem.

O conceito da discricionariedade, quando aplicado na compreensão do sistema de justiça criminal e das instituições nele inseridas, tem produzido grande quantidade de debates acadêmicos e institucionais. Em geral, tal ideia é reconhecida enquanto um elemento de tensão no âmbito dos processos de aplicação da lei no moderno Estado Democrático de Direito. Ela tem sido usada, mais especificamente, para designar momentos em que há alguma ruptura ou ruído nos procedimentos racionais e formais do sistema de justiça. Apesar desse sentido mais geral do termo, não é possível obter nas literaturas especializadas, em especial das ciências sociais e das ciências jurídicas, definições precisas, muito menos consensuais, para essa ideia. Notavelmente, foi nos países de língua inglesa em que esse debate alcançou maiores nuances. Ali, a discricionariedade ora foi considerada um aspecto inerente da forma de se aplicar a lei, podendo produzir justiça ou injustiça. Ora foi entendida como um resquício de formas pré-modernas de administração da justiça, sendo necessária eliminá-la. Ainda, foi definida como um conceito a ser descartado, seja por não conseguir delimitar precisamente o fenômeno que procura descrever, ou por tentar definir algo que na verdade se encontra em outro nível de análise. Já no Brasil não é possível falar em termos de um debate sobre o conceito da discricionariedade, pois aqui vem se adotando diferentes conceitos para descrever os fenômenos geralmente enquadrados por essa ideia, como arbitrariedade e seletividade. Os objetivos dessa pesquisa, portanto, são realizar uma síntese bibliográfica crítica dos debates nesses dois conjuntos de literatura, subdivididos, por sua vez, de acordo com a matriz disciplinar de cada pesquisa; estabelecer os pontos de contato e de separação entre cada uma delas; e, por fim, indicar os temas que se abrem a partir disso para a melhor compreensão do sistema de justiça criminal brasileiro. Assim, verifica-se, em maior grau, distanciamentos entre os dois grandes grupos de pesquisas em função sobretudo da configuração específica do sistema de justiça brasileiro, baseado na civil law, e de sua doutrina, em comparação com o sistema da common law. Mesmo assim, também se argumenta que a incorporação da gramática da discricionariedade, conforme delineada aqui, pode ser produtiva para o avanço da compreensão do sistema de justiça brasileiro. Por fim, indica-se o Ministério Público enquanto objeto privilegiado para a realização dessa tarefa, pois nessa instituição se expressam mais nitidamente as tensões identificadas em ambas literaturas, tanto na sua constituição organizacional, quanto na sua configuração doutrinária. Além disso, afirma-se também que o Ministério Público tem sido palco de um movimento de aproximação com seu correlato da common law, o que torna ainda mais produtiva a adoção da gramática da discricionariedade para sua análise. / Discretion is a key concept to understand the criminal justice system and its institutions. It is also the focus of a large number of academic and institutional controversies. This phenomenon is generally acknowledged as a source of tension to the processes of law enforcement associated with the democratic state governed by the rule of law. More precisely, discretion has been used to describe defective aspects of justices rational and formal procedures. Despite this general statement, social sciences and law studies are far from asserting an unequivocal definition of discretion. If one looks through researches published in English, he will find numerous differences. Discretion is sometimes described as an intrinsic feature of law enforcement that can equally provide fair or unfair consequences. It is also sometimes described as a residual feature of pre-modern administration of justice that has to be suppressed. Finally, some researches argues that discretion is a concept that must not be used since it cannot precisely describe a single phenomenon. Or because it attempts to describe something that simply do not belong to its level of analysis. Yet, Brazilian researches provide a different scenario. Discretion it is not as often used as in the previous case. The phenomena frequently understood as discretion is more commonly described by concepts such as arbitrariness or selectivity. Henceforth, the objectives of this research are: provide a research synthesis of this controversial field; compare the Brazilian literature to the English literature by means of a critical approach; and, at last, point out the questions arose by such comparison and that can be helpfully used to interrogate Brazilian justice system. Therefore, it will be argued that the different comprehensions found between Brazilian and English studies are due to the specific development and configuration of their justice system, each one being based upon different traditions (common law or civil law). However, it will also be argued that the adoption of the grammar of discretion by Brazilian researchers may result in the advance of the comprehension of its justice system. Finally, it will be pointed out that the Ministério Público (Brazils public prosecutors office) is a key institution at which discretion framework can be usefully applied. Especially because this institution clearly express the controversies and tensions previously identified in its organizational and doctrinaire constitution. Finally, it will be argued that the Ministério Público is also at the center of a movement towards its approximation with the common law prosecutors office.

O presente trabalho desenvolve uma investigação e análise das influências presentes nas dissertações apresentadas pelos estudantes da Faculdade de Direito de São Paulo como requisito parcial de avaliação. No período conhecido como Crise do Império, intensificaram-se as contradições entre o discurso liberal e a prática, tendo em vista a forma de organização do Império. As Faculdades de Direito foram concebidas como centros de formação dos quadros da burocracia do Império em um contexto de formação do Estado logo após a Declaração de Independência. As dissertações do período analisado trazem questões que estão ligadas com o momento histórico, tal como o processo de abolição da escravatura ou as relações entre Igreja e Estado de modo a permitir lançar uma nova luz a partir do modo como estava estruturada a formação e reprodução de conhecimento e do discurso jurídico no ambiente das Faculdades de Direito. / This study develops a research and analysis of the influences present in the dissertations presented by the students of the Faculty of Law of São Paulo as a partial requirement assessment. During the period known as Empire Crisis ,the contradictions between the liberal discourse and practice were intensified, considering the form of organization of the Empire . The Law Schools were designed as training centers of the Empire Red bureaucracy in a context of state formation shortly after the Declaration of Independence. Dissertations of the analyzed period bring issues that are connected to the historical moment as the slavery abolition process or the relationship between Church and State and they cast new light on the way it was structured the training and reproduction of knowledge and legal discourse in the Faculties of Law.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T17:27:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luiz Carlos Montans Braga.pdf: 2026970 bytes, checksum: b9e75123d2d8a0ce2129b35361430610 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-10-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The research started from the relationship among affects, politics and right in Spinoza s philosophy. Indeed, the Ethics Part III is the place where all affects are taken as specific topic. However, the affect subject also appears, in a more or less explicit way, in the exclusively political texts of the author, namely the Theological-Political Treatise and the Political Treatise, in addition to being quickly presented in argumentative moments of the Ethics Part IV, in which the issue of civitas is posed. Another aspect is the presence of the concept of power in the very definition of the concept of affect, in the Ethics Part III, thus closing the circle where the three concepts are presented, because Spinoza identifies right to power (jus sive potentia). The initial hypothesis referred to the existence of ties and intersections between such concepts, which was later confirmed by the detailed reading of Spinoza s texts, as well as of some of his commentators that have worked on the topics presented in the initial issue. The hard core of the dissertation tries to approach this conceptual relationship, explaining it by analyzing the author s texts, namely Ethics, the Theological-Political Treatise and the Political Treatise. In this argumentative proposition, the main thesis I try to defend is that Spinoza creates a political philosophy founded in the theory of affects. From this assumption, a second formulation comes up (but not a second thesis) over the pertinence of Spinoza s concepts for the contemporary emancipatory right. So, the path followed throughout the research has had two approaches, one far more finished and derived from the initial project, which makes an effort to solve the issue hereby posed, and another one more characterized by notes, bringing Spinoza s concept to the analysis of contemporary legal issues. This second moment of the dissertation looks into the pertinence of Spinoza s natural right concept for the contemporary right, besides analyzing the importance of the author s concepts to lend potency to one of the aspects of critical legal studies / O problema do qual partiu a pesquisa foi o da relação entre afetos, política e direito na filosofia de Espinosa. Com efeito, a Ética III é o local em que os afetos são tomados como tema específico. Ocorre que o tema dos afetos aparece também, mais ou menos explicitamente, nos textos exclusivamente políticos do autor, a saber, o Tratado Teológico-político e o Tratado-político, além de ser apresentado brevemente em momentos da argumentação da Ética IV em que a questão da civitas é posta. Outro ponto é a presença do conceito de potência na definição mesma do conceito de afeto, na parte III da Ética, fechando-se o círculo em que se apresentam os três conceitos, pois Espinosa identifica direito a potência (jus sive potentia). A hipótese inicial foi a da existência de laços e intersecções entre tais conceitos, o que se confirmou pela leitura em detalhe dos textos espinosanos, bem como dos comentadores que trabalharam os temas apresentados no problema inicial. O núcleo duro da tese procura alinhavar esta relação conceitual, explicitando-a por meio da análise dos textos do autor, especialmente a Ética, o Tratado Teológico-político e o Tratado-político. Neste movimento argumentativo, a principal tese que procuro defender é a de que Espinosa constrói uma filosofia política fundada na teoria dos afetos. Decorre desta tese uma elaboração (não uma segunda tese) acerca do tema da pertinência dos conceitos espinosanos para o direito emancipatório contemporâneo. Assim, o caminho percorrido em todo o trabalho tem dois movimentos, um mais bem acabado e decorrente do projeto inicial, o qual procura resolver a questão lá posta, e outro mais caracterizado por apontamentos, trazendo os conceitos espinosanos para a análise de questões jurídicas contemporâneas. Esse segundo momento da tese se debruça sobre o tema da pertinência do conceito de direito natural espinosano para o direito contemporâneo, bem como analisa a importância dos conceitos do autor para dar potência a uma das vertentes do direito crítico