This is an original non-experimental research conducted in four Geo-Political Zones in Nigeria (West Africa). It surveys opinions of victims of crime and conflicts, and criminal justice professionals with regard to exploring restorative justice as an Alternative Dispute Resolution Model in the country. The findings of this study are relatively in line with other cross-national research and evaluations of restorative justice, which consistently demonstrate that victims of crime are better off after participating in restorative justice programmes compared to the court proceedings (see Strang et al, 2006 for instance). The ‘Afrocentric’ viewpoints contained in the findings are imperative to international practitioners and scholars interested in Peace and Dispute Resolutions in Africa.

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a critical evaluation of the neorealist theory of international relations and its soft balancing variant through the use of case studies referring to transatlantic relations in the post-Cold War era. Each case study indicates a specific category of power. These are: i) Military - the European attempt to create a common military arm from 1991 to 2003. ii) Diplomatic - the EU's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1991 to 2003. iii) Economic the EU-USA steel dispute in 2002/03. In particular, the thesis undertakes to analyse whether the EU balanced the USA in the post-Cold War period either as a result of the altered structural distribution of capabilities within the international system (unipolarity) or of a set of deliberate plans to do so. After introducing the concepts of unipolarity, hard and soft balancing, the thesis outlines three comprehensive answers that neorealist scholars have generated as to whether the USA can or cannot be balanced in the post-Cold War international system, namely the structural, the soft balancing, and the alternative structural options. Then, drawing on a defensive realist perspective, this research goes on to consider the creation of the EU as a great power in the post-Cold War era. In light of this, the thesis aims to find out whether the rise of the EU as a great power has had an impact upon unipolarity either because of structural incentives or because of a predetermination to frustrate the aggressive policies of the unipolar state. The thesis then proceeds to investigate whether throughout the case studies series the EU has balanced the USA. The case studies highlight that the EU, freed from the rigid bipolar stalemate it had been locked into during the Cold War, undertook to exert greater influence on the world stage in the post-Cold War period. To some extent the EU has accomplished this in all of the power dimensions analysed in this thesis. Nevertheless, the EU's efforts to hold sway within the international system were not aimed at addressing the relative power imbalance created by unipolarity, and there were no deliberate plans harboured by the EU to frustrate the influence of any aggressive unipolar state. Overall, this thesis found the causal logic outlined by neorealism to be convincing to the extent that the EU emerged as a great power in the post-Cold War era and had greater freedom of action under unipolarity. However, with the partial exception of the economic dimension of power, there was no persuasive evidence uncovered to support the anticipated outcome of the neorealist theoretical slant, namely that great powers tend to balance each other. Moreover, while the soft balancing claim is considered to have promise as an attempt to understand how the EU can respond to US power under unipolarity, this study did not find sufficient evidence of the EU's deliberate intentions of doing so.

Using the findings of a five-year ethnographic study, this thesis examines the contractual relationships that prevail in low-technology moderately competitive industries characteristic of the contemporary Ukrainian economy. The research reports on how contracts are enforced and how the stability of business relationships is ensured in Ukraine. The established view of many scholars that business efficiency is held back in most post-Soviet economies by frequent contractual violations and dysfunctional courts is not entirely supported by the research underpinning this thesis: in Ukraine, contract enforcement is generally effective enough to allow stability in day-to-day transactions, and the commercial courts do provide adequate backing. Although the mechanisms used to enforce contracts in Ukraine are generally similar to those found in developed countries, there are distinctive features within the overall pattern. In particular, firms rely extensively on repeated interactions and self-enforcing devices while signing short-term formal contracts and avoiding interdependency between trading partners. They do not rely on their reputation or business association memberships and they make no use of private arbitration. Instead, a few legal institutions dating back to the Soviet period proved adaptable and viable in a market economy. When transactions involve either state-owned companies or the exercise of administrative resources, contract enforcement becomes problematic. Illegal kickbacks from suppliers and the coercive use of state machinery come into play, and asking a court to enforce a contract is more costly and less effective than in other cases. However, the author shows that in the typical everyday transactions of Ukrainian private firms, the state and its administrative resources are involved in the minority of cases, and that they do not undermine the dominant pattern of orderly contractual dealings. The thesis concludes that the contractual pattern prevalent in Ukraine effectively serves straightforward traditional buyer-seller transactions but it is ill-suited to meet the requirements of globalized trade, production diversification and technological progress. Adaptations of the existing system to meet these requirements are likely to depend upon changes in the wider business environment, namely upon institutions constraining the coercive power of the state.

Le droit antisubvention est construit par une combinaison des éléments de l'Accord SMC et des solutions du droit interne. Il se trouve au milieu de multiples tensions: l'obligation de conformité à l'égard des accords OMC v. l'autonomie du droit interne, l'équilibre institutionnel interne v. la prévisibilité du droit. La méthode de coordination multilatérale est dans un dilemme: la diffusion de ces tensions risque de laisser trop de marge de manoeuvre au pouvoir exécutif, tandis que trop d'ingérence créera une instabilité systémique. Dans son état actuel, en droit de l'Union européen comme en droit chinois, le droit antisubvention souffre encore d'incohérence entre sa mission et ses moyens: l'effectivité des règles de droit en face des faits économiques complexes reste un défi à relever. Pour la coordination multilatérale du droit antisubvention, l'arrivée de la Chine est à la fois un test de sa crédibilité et une opportunité. L'agressivité de la Chine réveillera éventuellement un besoin et un consensus pour un meilleur encadrement juridique du droit antisubvention. / The antisubsidy law created by dispositions of WTO rules and internal solutions, is situated in the center of multiple normative conflicts: firstly between obligation of compliance and the autonomy of internal legal order; and secondly between the need of institutional balance and the predictability of rules. The method of multilateral coordination is facing a dilemma, the diffusion of those tensions will give the executing authority too much leeway, but intervention will create systematical difficulties. As it is, both in European Union Law and in Chinese Law, the antisubsidy law suffers an incoherence between its mission and its capacity in terms of the effectiveness of its rules facing complexes economic realities. The arrival of China, is both a test and an oppotunity to the multilateral legal coordination on the use of countervailing duty. The aggressive use of the trade defense arm such as countervailing duty, could eventually awake a nee d and a consensus of better legal framework of the antisubsidy law.

Since its inception in 1995, more than 200 disputes have been raised under the WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU). In spite of the obvious numerical success of the DS system of the WTO, in practice several shortcomings call for institutional and/or procedural change. This analysis deals with the economic aspects of the DS system. First, it turns out that the WTO DS system seems to be "biased". The larger and richer trading nations (USA, EU) are the main users of this system, either because of the larger involvement in world trade, or because the LDCs simply lack the legal resources. Second, in taking advantage of recent theoretical explanations of the WTO system in general (trade talks) and the DS system in particular (aberrations from WTO compliance can lead to trade wars) one can theoretically derive the relative robust result concerning the present practice of the WTO DS system: retaliation with tariffs is ineffective, distorts allocation and is difficult to control. This is also demonstrated in an CGE model analysis for the most popular disputes between the EU and the USA: the Hormones, the Bananas and the FSC cases. The major conclusion of our economic evaluation is that the DS system of retaliation should be changed towards a transfer-like retaliation system. (author's abstract) / Series: EI Working Papers / Europainstitut

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Technology: Public Management (Peacebuilding), Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / One of the major issues following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 was what to do with the huge number of people (around 100 000) accused of crimes during the genocide. Western legal approaches dealt with a handful of such cases at huge expense but the vast majority of the accused languished in prison. The government decided to employ a modified version of Gacaca - the traditional way of dealing with disputes and lower level crimes at community level. Using a qualitative research methodology and employing focus groups and individual interviews as data collection tools, this research investigate perceptions about the operation of Gacaca in three Rwandan communities, with particular reference to truth, justice, forgiveness and reconciliation. The research suggests that in the three communities, Gacaca was seen as bringing the truth out into the open and to provide a measure of justice, although limitations were noted in both of these respects. Given the enormity of the genocide crimes, however, there seemed to be little progress in the areas of forgiveness and reconciliation. / M

RESUMÉ Title of the thesis: "Dispute resolution with an international element within the area of sports law". The aim of the thesis is to outline the systém of the dispute resolution reflecting sport specifics, especially the autonomy of sport bodies. The autonomy allows sport federations to establish decision-making bodies deciding upon the rights and duties of their members. In the first chapter of the thesis I discuss the proceedings before the decision-making bodies of the international sport federations. These bodies decide especially on disciplinary matters. As appeal bodies they deal with challenged decisions of the lower organizational level authorities. They also exercise jurisdiction in all matters entrusted according to the statute or other regulations while applying especially regulations of the relevant sport federation. I discuss the compliance of the principle of the fair proceedings and the issue of the binding force of a decision. The decision of sport bodies can be challenged only after the exhaustion of the remedies within the relevant sport federation in the proceedings before an ordinary court or arbitral tribunal if an arbitral agreement have been concluded. The judicial review is examined in the second chapter of my thesis. I deal with the admissibility of the judicial review of the...

International dispute resolution in sports Key words: international sports law, dispute resolution, CAS Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the mechanisms of dispute resolution in sports. After the introductory first chapter which deals with definitions of basic concepts such as sport in general or sports law, the thesis focuses on international aspects of sports law. The second chapter is concerned with essential issues of international sports law, particularly with the legitimacy of nongovernmental sports federations in the realm of the international legal order, nature of sports regulations, subjects of international sports law and the most important international legal documents. The third chapter describes the structure of international sports federations on the example of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Special attention is dedicated to the discussion of international legal personality of the IOC and also to the character of the Olympic Charter, which is a crucial international document in the area of sports. The next three chapters examine one of the most important segments of international sports law - dispute resolution. Firstly, a domestic level of dispute resolution is addressed. This passage also contains the analysis of state courts' interventions into the practice and...

This thesis the Reform of the WTO Dispute Settlement System, deals with urgent questions about the most important system resolution in international economic law. The WTO Dispute Settlement was established in 1995 and since then it has become a prime example of evolution in the field of international dispute resolution. The system itself has indeed its flaws and therefore its critics. Even its "founding fathers" indented to conduct a reform of the mechanism after few years in action. However, the reform has not yet materialised. The aim of the thesis is to discuss the state of negotiations over the reform of the system, in particular in context of power and rule orientation, and to analyze possible causes of the current state. The thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter One offers brief characterization of the WTO Dispute Settlement and its main document Understanding on rules and procedures governing the settlement of disputes (DSU), which is found in Annex 2 of the WTO Agreement. Chapter Two chronologically follows the so far unsuccessful development of DSU Revision in WTO. In international trade disputes, two ways of their settlement are recognised: power-oriented and rule-oriented. Both methods are described in Chapter Three. The Chapter Four focuses on the institutional dimension of the...

- Special court proceedings (general issues) The diploma thesis is focused on the topic special court proceedings. Special court proceedings are a subject, representing one kind of the civil proceedings that is characterized by disposing peculiarities from the general regulations of the civil dispute proceedings. Special court proceedings are governed mainly by the Act No. 292/2013 Coll., on special court proceedings. This act contains the exceptions from the general proceedings regulations and enumeration of the specific special proceedings and its regulation. Also Act No. 99/1963 Coll., civil procedure code is subsidiary used. This thesis aims to give a comprehensive explanation of the subject of special court proceedings by consistent definition of the subject itself based on use of the several ways of distinguishing it from the civil dispute proceedings. The next target of the thesis is to evaluate the historical development of the mentioned subject and to compare contemporary legislation with the laws applicable during the era of the first republic. Last but not least the thesis contains the analysis of the current legislative, especially the act on special court proceedings, which content and formal aspect of elaboration is assessed. The description of the special court proceedings itself...