Doctor of Philosophy / Responsible Government began in New South Wales in 1856. Direct participation by women began 70 years later in 1925 with the election of Millicent Preston-Stanley. Her first speech questioned whether Parliament was a fit place for women. Another significant milestone was reached after another 70 years when female MLAs in the Fifty-first Parliament constituted 15% of the Legislative Assembly and female MLCs made up 33% of the Legislative Council. In the 1990s there was no formal barrier to the participation of persons on the basis of their sex but no scholarly study had addressed the question of whether the Parliament’s culture was open to all gender orientations. This study examines the hypothesis that the Parliament informally favoured some types of gender behaviour over others. It identifies ‘gender’ as behaviour rather than a characteristic of persons and avoids the conflation of gender with sex, and particularly with women exclusively. The research used interviews, observation and document study for triangulation. The thesis describes the specific context of New South Wales parliamentary politics 1995-1999 with an emphasis on factors that affect an understanding of gender. It explores notions of representation held by MPs, analyses their personal backgrounds and reports on gender-rich behaviours in the chambers. The study concludes that gender was a significant factor in the behaviour of Members of the Parliament. There were important differences between the ways that male and female MPs approached their roles. Analysis of the concept of gender in the Parliament shows that some behaviours are more likely to bring political success than are others. The methodology developed here by adapting literature from other systems has important strengths. The data suggest that there is a need for many more detailed studies of aspects of gender in parliaments.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Edinburgh, 2002.

This thesis analyses “health care litigation” in Brazil and England. By health care litigation I mean those lawsuits in which claimants demand from the State the provision of a certain health treatment based on their entitlement to receive health care from the public health system or funded by it. The question that guides this thesis is whether courts intervening in rationing decisions make the public health system more or less fair. The concept of fairness I use in this thesis draws on the idea of “accountability for reasonableness” developed by Norman Daniel and Charles Sabin. This research will analyse the case-law of courts in Brazil and England, and the impact of litigation on the public health system. Based on this research, I argue that health care litigation in Brazil, where courts interpret the right to health as an individual trump against rationing decisions, is making the public health system less fair. Conversely, in England, where courts mainly control the procedure rather than the substance of the rationing decisions, litigation contributed to make health authorities more accountable and rationing decisions more public and based on better reasons, robust evidence and fair principles. Interestingly, even though courts in both countries have judged their cases in different ways, in the long term, litigation was one of the reasons for the creation of health technology assessment systems that try to legitimate rationing decisions through more public and better reasoned decisions: CONITEC in Brazil and NICE in England. The analysis of healthcare litigation in Brazil and England also contributes to the broader debate about social rights adjudication. These cases provide empirical and nuanced evidence that can be compared with the experience of other jurisdictions to shed light on the potential, risks and limits of courts controlling the allocation of resources in social policies using the language of social rights.

Health is an important matter for both individuals and states. Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (UDHR), health has been categorised as a human right. In the years following this Declaration, many international treaties and national constitutions have emphasised this issue;for example, article 12 of the International Convention of Economic, Social and Cultural rights 1966 (ICESCR). However, as this thesis notes, the language in which this right is cast varies. This, it is argued, is problematic for any attempt to vindicate the right and ensure its justiciability. Accordingly an alternative definition is explored and clarified in what follows. In first chapter, the focus is on arguing that, the current phrases such as ‘right to health’, ‘right to medical care’, ‘the human right to highest attainable standards of health’ and ‘right to health protection’ are vague and weak and may prevent a clear understanding of the expectations that people may legitimately have. The main outcome is to describe a workable and more precise right which can also be legally enforced; that is, the right to health care. In the second chapter, the legal sources of the right to health care in international law are explored. In particular, it is argued that there are obligations on states to implement this right and, as members of the international community and the main subject of international law, to take all necessary steps to put it into practice by translating these obligations into domestic law, thus ensuring that health care is treated as a human right In addition, this chapter also describes the general principles of human rights, such as non-discrimination, participation and equity, that ought to be taken into account by the state`s authorities when they implement the right in question. The following two chapters are devoted to examining the status of the right to health care in the United Kingdom and Libya as models of developed and developing countries.According to health Act No 106 of 1973, health care appear to be simply human right in theory in both national law and international commitments however in practice the government as well as the judiciary did not take it seriously. As result, the case laws have not considered such right as human right nor a legal right for Libyans. In the UK, the reluctance of the government to treat health care as legal right has not stopped judges to evaluate health decisions makers and adjudicate whether such decisions were proper with the case in question. Thus, the chance for UK citizens to review the decisions of the health authorities is wider under the judicial review in terms of legal right rather than human right. In the conclusion, it is proposed that the main problem in according the right to health care the status of a human right is not in fact related to any inability of the judiciary to deal with social and economic rights, nor is it reliant on disagreement about the legal nature of the right and whether it should be categorised as a negative or a positive right, but relates rather to the meaning of the right and what it should include. It is further proposed that the right defended in this thesis – the right to health care – can solve this problem by clarifying the nature and content of the right. The UK experience shows that when such clarity exists, the debate about whether or not the right exists or is justiciable becomes irrelevant. Equally, the state can ignore the international distinctions between types of right and invest health care with the status of a justiciable right in domestic law. While the interim Libyan Government refers to a right to health care in its new constitution, it is clear that political will is necessary to translate it into reality. The Libyan state has much to learn from the healthcare and legal structures of the United Kingdom; particularly it can learn from examination of the mechanisms by which the UK, and other European nations and organisations, have effectively avoided the debate about whether or not the right to health care can be categorised as a human right by developing jurisprudence that renders it clear and justiciable in and of itself.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the role of corporate social responsibility (hereinafter ‘CSR’) in corporate governance in the context of employment. This is done through a comparative study of the United Kingdom (hereinafter ‘UK’) and China in which it is determined whether Chinese companies can adopt UK companies’ CSR practices in employment. The thesis begins with an overview of the theory of corporate governance and the necessity of CSR in corporate governance. The different models and principles of corporate governance and CSR, and how the main corporate organs operate in corporate governance and apply CSR in decision-making to meet stakeholders’ needs are introduced. The study then demonstrates the rationale behind the emergence of CSR, the legal impact of CSR on stakeholders and the global application of CSR initiatives, especially the techniques and mechanisms adopted in the UK and China. The research specifically presents CSR practices in employment in the UK and China against a theoretical background. This comparative study is mainly dependent on companies’ information disclosure, since all data were collected from their official CSR reports. The quality of the information disclosure is assured through effective monitoring as stated in the various reports. The implication of the comparative research on the information disclosure collected demonstrates the difference in CSR implementation in employment between UK and Chinese companies. The thesis analyses the possibility of adopting UK CSR practice in employment in Chinese companies in terms of the economic, social and political barriers to, and current situation of, CSR in China. As China has opened up the global market, overseas companies have invested in the Chinese market. This comparative study of CSR implementation in the context of employment in the UK and China, and the analysis of the current status of Chinese CSR practices also provide foreign enterprises experience to relate their CSR policies in corporate governance to Chinese context.

This thesis is concerned with REACH, the EU Regulation on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, and its regulator, the European Chemicals Agency (‘ECHA’). It has two overriding objectives. The first is to provide an exposition of REACH. The Regulation is vast and has been called, "possibly the most controversial and complex piece of legislation in European history", by one of the EU Commissioners who oversaw its genesis. Despite (or possibly because of) this, there is comparatively little substantive writing on REACH. The second aim of this thesis is to explore REACH using new governance literature and, in particular, writing which looks at post legislative norm elaboration via the use of guidance. The text of the Regulation stands at more than 130,000 words. The most recent consolidated version of REACH is 516 pages long. The Regulation is complex and dense and lengthy. Accompanying this complex legislation are more than one million words of official guidance produced by ECHA. To date, there have been a small handful of case studies which use particular legislative regimes to explore the challenges posed by post legislative norm elaboration via guidance. The yoking of post legislative soft norms to REACH has seen a complex transformation; one which was only partially foreseen in the Regulation (and likely also only partly foreseen in the minds of the legislature). As such, REACH is a good example of an evolving system of EU governance that is both associated with the Community Method and is also differentiated, new, complex and nuanced. However, REACH also acts as a challenge to a number of assumptions in the new governance literature, including: that new governance is non-hierarchical; that yoked soft norms are complementary and come only from the state; and that soft law elaborates solely on framework norms.

Elderly care is one of the more high profile contemporary issues that confronts care professionals, the Government and its citizens. Central to these are concern how care is best regulated and the cost effectiveness of decisions to cut care delivery across the public and private sectors. Defining what constitutes good care delivery is a continuing challenge to health care managers and staff, as the benchmark is in constant flux due to advances in modern medicine and the progression of new and dangerous ill-health conditions. Culture, personal values and expectation changes from generation to generation also blur the definition of what constitutes good care. This thesis offers a contemporary analysis of care and examines how regulatory systems have been too ad hoc and often retrospective; leading to deficiencies in the pro-activity and holistic response elderly care requires to tackle its issues. This is one of the most rapidly evolving areas of regulation in a period of intense media attention and public concern over elderly care. A considerable degree of permanence can be identified towards the action plan of the Government in engaging a variety of reactionary regulatory strategies. In the later analysis in the thesis, it is suggested that additional specialist and dedicated regulation may still prove to be necessary to secure care quality and undertake preventative measures against the abuse of this vulnerable section of the community. Public concern and medical interest continues to reveal cases of severe neglect of the elderly in many private care homes. The Care Quality Commission, the main regulator since 2009, undertakes inspections and reports on care quality, but doubts remain as to how effective the measures in place guard the quality of care in practice. The second Francis Report on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation (5th February 2013) highlighted many failings in the National Health Service and showed how the most vulnerable and elderly to be particularly at risk. Reports of poor care of the elderly continue to confirm that stricter monitoring and inspections are needed. The aims and objectives of this thesis, are to understand how elderly care regulation has addressed systemic regulatory failures and provides a case study of lessons learnt from past omissions and mistakes. At the time of writing, the Care Quality Commission has undertaken tougher inspection regimes by currently adopting a system of special measures, and new regulations are being considered. Over its approximately six years of activity since it ‘plugged a regulatory hole’ it’s now progressively much improved inspectorate function has even just embraced ‘whistle-blowing’ as part of its ‘work in progress’ profile. There is continued pressure on the regulator to meet expectations of ensuring high quality care, and it is also a response to the changing role of care homes; reflecting the diverse range of care and the ageing population. This thesis provides an analysis of how elderly care has evolved over many centuries and varied in its standards of delivery. Defining appropriate levels for care standards is one approach, adopting a holistic approach is another, but the culture of care is one that needs to be fostered through family members who are often engaged in the delivery of elderly care, as well as the community at large. Developing care through purely legal mechanisms, such as the setting of care standards has its limitations, but will undoubtedly also feature as part of any perceived solution. There are signs that the changing culture in care homes and those that provide care, is a recent and most welcome shift in regulatory goals and objectives. It is argued that this change reflects positively on the current care system which has been driven by some better education of care workers and greater empathy with the elderly; an empathy which is driven by the growing reality with every new generation that most of us will live well into our elderly years due to the advancement of modern medicine. Reflected also is increased lack of trust in people, where in the past assumptions about care delivery standards by individuals were relied upon instead, and how to engage with the continuous re-design of oversight regulatory structures issues of legitimacy and increasing public trust. The Care Quality Commission is developing its own identity and offers a form of social regulation that is set apart from the main economic regulators. There are many lessons which can be learnt when working from within the National Health Service through the use of internal networks, access to current government policy and funding arrangements. Despite strong ministerial engagement in this area, the Care Quality Commission has been able to maintain its own voice and, in recent months, has developed its expertise to address public concerns about elderly care. Despite this, the statistics show that at least one third of care homes are regarded as less than satisfactory, suggesting that much work remains to be undertaken. Co-ordinating clinical and social care of the elderly is part of patient safety. It also connects with regulating the professional standards of health and social care professionals.

Conflict or battlefield archaeology has been steadily gaining traction within British archaeology since the 1990s. Methods of inquiry unique to conflict archaeology, allied to a growing body of theory, have enabled archaeologists to define and reconstruct events of past conflict, illuminating a distinctive component of the human experience. This thesis applies the theories and methods of conflict archaeology to investigate Anglo-Welsh conflict landscapes of the twelfth century. It aims to explore patterns of Welsh resistance to Anglo-Norman military campaigns through the analysis of documents, landscapes and archaeological sites. Events of armed conflict explored archaeologically using battlefield archaeology methods, present a unique opportunity to undo biases inherent in traditional military history approaches. Unfortunately the amorphous and at times ephemeral nature of medieval conflicts has generally discouraged their archaeological investigation. The study seeks to address this by the application of a holistic conflict archaeology methodology, refined for medieval conflicts. This research specifically focuses on the often overlooked conflicts associated with the reign of Owain ap Gruffudd, (better known as Owain Gwynedd) from 1137–1170, particularly the conflict events connected to King Henry II’s 1157 campaign along the North coast of Gwynedd, and the 1165 campaign in the Berwyn Mountains. A significant part of this is accomplished by successfully utilizing devices of military terrain analysis, spatially represented via GIS (Geographical Information System) technology, to reconstruct archaeological landscapes of conflict. Using these approaches, the thesis presents new understandings of both specific events and the broader conflict landscapes associated with Welsh resistance to the Anglo-Norman conquest.

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No description available.