This thesis takes as its starting point the proposition that the restricted development of law centres in the United Kingdom has been a result of the exercise of power by the legal profession. This was based on the evidence of the legal profession's influence on the initial development of public legal services policy and the profession's active opposition to the emergence of the first law centres in the United Kingdom. However, law centres remained on the margins of public legal services policy, despite the retreat of the profession from its original position. Thus, it was suggested that the key issue was not simply the power of the profession, but also the power of the dominant paradigms of legal practice, legal needs and legal services. This is reflected in the private practice and casework orientation of the legal aid system. Law centres challenge the dominant paradigms in many ways. They offer a multi-faceted approach to the resolution of the legal and socio-economic problems of the poor and do so in a not-for-profit, community-controlled and often collectivist context. Through quantitative and qualitative techniques employed in a multiple case study setting, this study sought to test the 'power hypothesis' empirically. Focusing on all of the law centres operating at any time between 1974 and 1997 in Strathclyde and the West Midlands, detailed accounts of significant events and periods in each centre's birth, life and, where appropriate, death were constructed. The thesis provides for the first time a social historical narrative of the development of law centres in these two locations. These accounts reveal that the profession and the dominant paradigms have had an impact on law centres in many significant ways. However, several of the greatest difficulties faced by law centres cannot be explained by reference to this conceptual framework. Accordingly, the thesis concludes that a wider theoretical framework is required to explain the development of law centres. This wider framework must draw on several existing traditions. It should recognise the importance of community, local and ethnic politics; social exclusion and ethnicity; and organisational and change management. However, it must also recognise the power of the legal profession and the dominant paradigms, as the additional challenges this brings distinguish the experience of law centres from that of other radical, community organisations.

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This thesis is an examination into the problem of land disputes between villages in the highland (kebessa) area of Eritrea. Through a case study of the dispute between the villages of Guaquat and Goddele, which are located in the district of Mereta Keih, Southern Zone, this study explores the causes, nature and consequences of land disputes and the mechanisms by which they are settled. It interprets the land dispute by placing it within its historical, social, and political contexts and in the land tenure systems in the area, establishing the complex nature of the case study in particular and land disputes in the highland in general. In this area of the country, where the society is made up of settled peasant cultivators, the village is the basic land owning-community in which land is communally owned. For almost all of rural Eritreans land remains the sole means of subsistence, hence the means of life. Yet, over the decades, because of high population density land resource became extremely scarce. As a result land became a source of competition and struggle for existence. It is a kind of property that must be jealously defended. While scarcity of land is the underlying cause of land disputes, other immediate causal factors have been identified, which result from tenural arrangements, unclear boundaries between villages, trespassing, etc. The disputes manifest themselves through endless litigation processes and with clashes between disputant villages. The long-established permanent village settlements, which go back for centuries, created a strong and inextricable link between land and communities. Land is, thus, a source of dignity and identity. Over the years this strong link between land and society intensified people's attachment to land, which in tum resulted in the development of significant social and cultural value to land. All these factors added fuel to the struggle for the vital resource of land. The study also shows that the new land proclamation, which puts land in the hands of the state , cannot eliminate land disputes between communities to the extent is expected, but, rather adds another dimension to the problem of land disputes. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

At the same time resources are becoming more scarce there is an increase in the use of parks, wilderness and other natural environments for recreational purposes. This is evident in British Columbia where much of provincial parks planning is concerned with the accommodation of an ever increasing diversity of outdoor recreation activities. For a variety of reasons the people engaged in those activities do not always get along therefore resolving these social conflicts is becoming an ever larger part of recreation resource planners’ and managers’ jobs. The problem with conflict management in outdoor recreation is that the methods which are commonly used do not address the sources of conflict. Even though it is the recreationists who are experiencing conflict the focus remains on managing the resource. The traditional conflict management prescription is to separate activities that are considered to be incompatible. This action is necessary in some cases but it can often exacerbate the conflict. Since the reasons for conflict are largely sociological and psychological it is necessary that the groups in conflict get together to find a solution. Conflict management methods based on the spatial separation of activities that do not include this step will not be as effective as those that do. This thesis establishes a number of weaknesses in activity based conflict prevention by examining both the sources of conflict in outdoor recreation and the methods of conflict management which are traditionally used. These weaknesses are then considered in a two part examination. First, the conflict management policies of BC Parks are examined. Second, a closer look is taken at a specific conflict issue: the Garibaldi Master Plan and its treatment of the issue of mountain biking in the park. In general, without a formal conflict management policy in place users of BC’S provincial parks who find themselves in conflict with other users can not be assured that the sources of conflict will be addressed. In the Garibaldi Park case study, BC Parks focused on managing the resource rather than managing the social conflict that was occurring. They took steps in the right direction but failed to take the most crucial step which is getting the parties in conflict talking to each other. Even though the sources of conflict are recognized they are not the prime consideration in resolving the conflict.

The protracted crises of authority that characterized the 1960s and 1970s left their imprints on a number of institutions in Canadian society. The dispute resolution arena, for one, was affected by the turmoil of this age as more informal, 'empowering' alternatives were sought to replace the disempowering procedures of courtroom adjudication. The present thesis focuses on one aspect of an ensuing 'alternative dispute resolution' movement in the Canadian province of British Columbia; namely, community mediation. In particular, it begins by looking at the rhetoric and practices through which community mediation has been deployed. Advocates tout this process as an 'empowering' method of resolving disputes because it encourages individuals to work conflict out in the 'community', thus - so their reasoning goes - limiting state intrusion into people's everyday lives. By contrast, critics of the movement argue that the deployment of informal justice actually expands state control, and contend that it does so rather insidiously under the guise of 'restricting' state activities. Close scrutiny of this debate, however, reveals significant weaknesses in both positions, mainly relating to their unnecessarily narrow definition of the 'problem'; i.e., whether informal justice expands or reduces state control. This is a highly questionable formulation, for it demands a simple response from what is a much more complex and ambiguous event. Taking its cue from more recent developments in the literature, the following analysis reconceptualizes the 'problem' by asking: what is the logic of control embodied by mediation practices in a given context? It responds to the question by developing certain Foucauldian precepts into a theory that explicates the model of power through which mediation regulates action. Its implicit objective is to understand the political rationale of mediation in order to pursue how this might be used to further social justice. Various genealogical procedures are employed to formulate such a theory by responding to four central questions. What are the wider lines of descent that have helped to produce the particular version of community mediation that now colours British Columbia's landscape? What precise model of power does the rhetoric and practice of mediation reflect? How does this informal model of power link up with the formal power of the law/state? What are the implications of this for engaging politically with community mediation, if one's aim is to achieve social justice? Responding to each of these in turn supplies the basic thesis of the following text. In brief, I argue that community mediation has developed in British Columbia in tandem with a shift from Fordist to Post-Fordist modes of regulation (politics) and production (economics) that characterized the 1970s. Influenced by legal reforms and experiments with 'alternatives' to courts, community mediation has assumed an identity which incorporates a 'pastoral' model of power. This model is articulated to the state's 'law-sovereign' model as a 'complementary,' but subordinate, alternative. The association between these results in an indirect form of governance - 'government at a distance' - that may expand the state's potential to control people, but which is also considerably less predictable. This offers both opportunities and barriers to political action in the informal justice arena. Consequently, while the current deployment of community mediation in British Columbia tends to support the professionalised justice of the existing legal system, it may yet be possible to transform its identity through an 'alternative' politics of law that strives for social justice.

This thesis intends to provide an argument in favour of private participation in the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an area of the world trading system most visible to but also most removed from the influence of private actors. Private participation is understood as the direct and formal involvement of non-governmental actors in dispute resolution. It will distinguish between passive and active participation, the former addressing the flow of information from the WTO to civil society (understood as the community of all Member societies affected by the world trading system), while the later is concerned with issues of access and standing. As first step, I will develop an analytical framework for international dispute settlement systems based on the three elements of actors, material scope and procedures, as well as the underlying theoretical conceptions for each element. After having given an overview of the relevant features of the world trading system and its dispute resolutions mechanisms as set forth in the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) of the WTO, I continue by subsuming the DSU under the analytical framework. Based on the position of the DSU within the analytical framework, I will submit an argument in favour of private participation, drawing particularly from the international relations theory of liberalism. Parting from realist-institutionalist assumptions predominant in public international law, liberalism places the individual at the center of international and WTO law, opening the latter for new categories of international actors. Finally, taking into account the liberal reliance on individual rights and democratic participation, I will suggest models to implement private participation in WTO dispute settlement. My aim is to promote meaningful involvement of private actors whose interests and objectives are affected by the world trading system, with varying procedural roles reflecting their relation to the WTO's trade regime, ranging form passive participation, to party status, to amici curiae.

Traditional redress mechanisms such as litigation and traditional alternative dispute resolution generally fail to strengthen consumer confidence in e-commerce. Rather they may represent an additional source of uncertainty. In particular litigation fails to offer the certainty the consumer seeks. To date, neither European nor American courts have found reliable criteria for determining Internet jurisdiction and have failed to provide consistency in their decisions. In addition, uncertainty arising from unclear concepts on the enforcement level and the high volume of disputes with low monetary value have led to the development of online ADR providers that allow individuals from across the world to settle disputes. Both online mediation and online arbitration serve consumers as appropriate instruments to enforce their rights arising out of online disputes. They are designed for disputes with small monetary value and are capable of overcoming jurisdictional obstacles. On the enforcement level, online arbitration based on the New York Convention provides the consumer with a powerful tool on global level. Online consumer arbitration can ensure a maximum of enforceability if the consumer arbitration rules of online ADR providers incorporate the requirements of the New York Convention. In addition or instead of online ADR, businesses increasingly rely on other dispute avoidance and dispute settlement instruments in order to promote consumer confidence. Some of those models employed by e-commerce companies succeed in promoting trust, while others do so only to a limited extent. In particular, mandatory credit card chargeback regimes give consumers an effective and quick means of disputing a transaction with a merchant at almost no cost. On the other hand, escrow services seem to be less appropriate for the typical small amount e-commerce transaction mainly since consumers are generally not willing to pay the added costs for the use of the escrow service for the average small amount transaction. Trustmark and seal programs provide the potential to give guidance to the consumer about consumer protection standards of the online seller before any damage is done and offer effective and inexpensive certification, monitoring and enforcement procedures. However, to date trustmark and seal systems have applied these powerful tools only to a limited extent. A proliferation of trustmark and seal programs make it hard for consumers to distinguish between differences in the programs and to assess their quality. Rating and feedback systems provide an immediate and inexpensive source of information to buyers about sellers and a strong incentive for good performance to repeat sellers. These systems are prone to abuse and information gathered through these systems is often unreliable. In my thesis I argue that traditional litigation no longer provides the most appropriate means of dispute settlement in the case of small amount crossborder consumer transactions. Neither do traditional ADR mechanisms provide the most convenient and efficient method of settling online consumer disputes. Online ADR and several other models of redress successfully replace traditional mechanisms since they better meet the challenges of online disputes and live up to recognised consumer protection principles. I argue that online arbitration based on international arbitration law such as the New York Convention presents a particularly viable instrument for the settlement of the average smallamount online consumer disputes. After having sketched the jurisdictional hurdles for the resolution of online disputes I analyse whether both online ADR and other trust-creating models are capable of providing an efficient and fair redress instrument for the consumer. For this purpose, the practises and policies of online dispute resolution providers are mirrored in recognised consumer protection principles and the international legal framework. Likewise the potential and limits of other trust-creating models are explored under the question of to what extent they serve the consumer as a viable instrument to impose her rights. The guiding questions of this evaluation will be if and to what extent these recently evolved institutions meet - according to their policies and practises - the challenges set up by the particularities of online consumer transactions.

Konfliktai egzistuoja tiek, kiek ir pati visuomenė, tačiau dar niekam nepavyko atrasti tobulo mechanizmo jiems spręsti. Iš daugelio alternatyvių ginčų sprendimo būdų šiame darbe autorius nagrinėja tik vieną – mediaciją – į interesus nukreiptą konflikto sprendimo procesą, kurio metu neutralus ir nešališkas asmuo skatina ir padeda konfliktuojančioms šalims pasiekti jas abi tenkinantį sprendimą. Didelės išlaidos ir sprendimų priėmimo vilkinimas asocijuojasi su teisminiu civilinių bylų nagrinėjimu. Todėl žmonėms reikia naujo būdo, įgalinančio spręsti ginčus daug efektyviau. Vis labiau pripažįstama, kad būtent mediacija padeda išsaugoti tarpusavio santykius, nustatyti tikrąsias ginčo priežastis, jaustis vertinamiems teisingai ir sąžiningai, su pagarba ir nepažeidžiant asmens orumo. Tai pavyksta dėl keleto esminių priežasčių. Pirma, taikant mediaciją nenustatinėjama kaltė ar nekaltumas. Antra, šalys yra lygios, ir pačios nusprendžia, koks sprendimas geriausias. Trečia, teismo procesas šalims yra įtemptas, tuo tarpu mediacijoje nėra trikdančių formalumų. Lietuvoje prielaidos mediacijai atsirado tik 2003-01-01 įsigaliojus naujajam Civilinio proceso kodeksui. Taikant mediaciją gali būti sprendžiami iš esmės daugiausia civiliniai ginčai kylantys iš šeimos, rangos, nuomos, darbo santykių, taip pat komerciniai ginčai, nesutarimai tarp kaimynų ir bendruomenių, vartotojų ir verslininkų, privataus kaltinimo bylos, ginčai dėl intelektinės nuosavybės ir kt. Nepaisant to, kad kol kas nėra... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Conflicts exist as long as all society, but nobody could devise a perfect mechanism for resolving their disputes. Of all the existing methods of alternative dispute resolution, in this job author will speak only about the one – mediation - an informal method of dispute resolution, in which a neutral third party, the mediator, attempts to assist the parties in finding resolution to their problem through the mediation process. The high cost and long delays is associating with trial of civil matters. That’s way human needs the new way, which could help them to resolve conflicts more effectively. More and more we recognize the mediation as a process for saving relationship, finding the main reasons of dispute, also people are treated with respect in this procedure, they can save their dignity. There are some reasons for this point. First, mediation has no goal to find the guilty or innocence. The second, parties are equal and they can decide which settlement is the best in this situation. Third, litigation is always stressful, while mediation has no disconcerting formalism. Premises of mediation have come in Lithuania only with new Civil Code. By applying mediation can be resolved mostly civil matters as divorce, commercial treaties, employment. There is no direct regulation in Lithuanian domestic law, but we can find some regulations in various legal documents and international treaties. Direct procedure of mediation process is also not regulated, but the essential principles... [to full text]

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This dissertation explores the legal issues raised by the participation of private persons in the settlement of international economic disputes, using the potential enlargement of legal standing in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as a case study. In the first part, a typology of the special regime of responsibility of WTO Members is drawn, to serve as a "normative bridge" between the twin phenomenon of legalisation of international trade relations and judicialisation of international trade dispute settlement. In the second part, a comparative study of the participation of private persons in the settlement of international economic disputes is conducted, using the doctrine of diplomatic protection from general international law as the analytical framework. This permits an inventory of the various means of private participation in the current practice of States, as well as shedding light on the main systemic problems that are raised, notably in the field of foreign direct investment, where important developments have taken place. In the third part, a study de lege feranda on the enlargement of legal standing in the WTO dispute settlement mechanism is undertaken. The study is rooted in the previous analysis of the special regime of responsibility of WTO Members and the comparative survey on the participation of private parties in the settlement of international economic disputes. The dissertation demonstrates that the problems concerning private persons in the current mechanism should not be answered by offering them direct access to the WTO, but rather by refocusing attention on the central role of the State in the mediation of diverging interests in the governance of the world trading system. It proposes as a conclusion that WTO Members should instead look into formalising the process of handling private complaints at the domestic level.