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Funding and litigation finance is an important aspect of international adjudication. The growing literature on courts and tribunal has however overlooked the subject of litigation cost and finance. This paper considers the development of the practice of trust funds that aid access to international courts and tribunals for states as well as corporate and natural persons. Next, the paper addresses strategies to increase access to justice by poorer developing states and indigent persons. The paper evaluates the means by which further confidence in the adoption of international adjudication, arbitral routes and other appropriate dispute resolution routes may be promoted among poorer parties in order to reduce the deleterious effects of acute financial inequalities between litigants and other participants. In order to exhaustively deal with this issue of litigation financing the paper will, therefore, compare the relevant law and processes of the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, the various International Criminal tribunals, the World Trade Organisation and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute.

Purpose A new republic has just begun in Nigeria in 2015 with the election of two anti-corruption crusaders as President and Vice president, respectively. Although very few empirical studies exist on the subject of corruption within the justice system in Nigeria the intolerable popular impression is that the machinery of justice in Nigeria is quite notoriously corrupt. The aim of this paper is to identify strategies and mechanisms that will enhance the professionalism, effectiveness, integrity, accountability and transparency of the organisations within Nigeria’s administration of justice system both at the federal and state levels including Ministries of Justice, the Police, the Prison Service, immigration, customs and even the Bar. Design/methodology/approach Literature research is used to examine the problem. The author looks at corruption in the context of Nigerian laws. He tabulates the offences within the scope of the prohibition against corruption in Nigeria, as well as the incidences of corruption within the various sections of the criminal justice system. The prescriptive recommendations are divided into short-, medium- and long-term measures. Findings That corruption is actually prevalent in all areas of the Nigerian justice system. It is crucial that an impression must be made by the new administration in this area within a very short frame of time to arrest the situation and to reverse the damage caused so far. Research limitations/implications Word limit has not enabled us to go into deeper analysis. Lack of objective studies done from within the Nigeria justice sector itself on the manifestation of corruption. Originality/value Very original analysis based on unique insight into the issue as academics, lawyers and practitioners within Nigerian anticorruption institutions.

Gbenga Oduntan analyzes the current state of law and practice of space activities as they relate to private enterprise, highlighting the need for national and international reform to better align international systems. The article traces the increasing scope of law relevant to private enterprise in space and advises directions in which it can evolve.

This paper outlines recent developments in regional cooperation within the Gulf of Guinea region leading to the recent establishment of the Gulf of Guinea Commission. The huge interest generated among the major oil-producing multinational corporations, the newer independent producers and the participating States in the Gulf of Guinea necessitates a critical assessment of the Treaty Establishing the Gulf of Guinea Commission. This paper adopts a comparative analysis with pre-existing regional and institutional bodies having similar aims and objectives. The aim is to ascertain whether and to what extent the emergent regime can facilitate a sustainable and responsive regime for the anticipated explosion of exploitative activities in this resource-rich and strategic littoral zone. This paper, thus, places the existing regime in the context of international best practices for multinationals and governments involved in oil and gas exploration and production. The author identifies certain imperatives for the consideration of both the corporate and sovereign interests in the world's newest resource Eldorado.

The existence of straddling settlements between Cameroon and Nigeria is one of the features of their geographical location as neighbouring West African States. Although the existence of these settlements did not constitute a central part of the boundary dispute between both States, implementation of the recent World Court judgment presents crucial dilemmas as to the treatment of straddling communities in particular and, to some extent, boundary villages as well. This article explores the alternatives that may be adopted in attaining a fair and just implementation of the Court's judgment in relation to straddling villages and boundary communities. The delimitation and demarcation of straddling villages and villages that fall into another State's territory are bound to be an increasingly common feature of the work of international courts and demarcation commissions as populations increase and the need to definitively specify borders increases. It is, therefore, necessary that a specialized jurisprudence is developed for this area of law. This article, therefore, attempts to highlight difficulties in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in its work in this area and suggests a typology of factors that may be adopted in varying delimitation lines by adjudicators and demarcators. It also attempts a digest of what may represent good practice in the law of boundary delimitation and demarcation by examining similar cases around the world. The argument presented is that there is enough within the corpus of international law and international relations for courts to avoid splitting communities needlessly or subjecting populations to the whims and caprice of hostile States' territorial jurisdiction, particularly in relation to a continent such as Africa, which has suffered a long and unfair history of balkanization of its peoples and civilizations. The article makes the case that the World Court needs more law elaboration if not judicial activism in its delimitation work to avoid inadvertent complicity in the abuse of peoples' rights and to attain a more robust resolution of boundary disputes. The view advanced is that where aspects of the Court's delimitation may be unsatisfactory and contrary to the mutual interests of disputants, those charged with the task of implementing the Court's judgment must not be slavish in their appreciation of the spirit of judicial resolution. Where there is the danger that human and generational rights would be needlessly compromised, nothing apart from an unimaginative and unco-operative approach prevents demarcators from independently adopting a more holistic resolution of the dispute in the interest of human justice, such as by (within very strict limits) varying delimitation lines suggested by the Court in particular sectors.

Controversy persists as to whether international law is Eurocentric in nature and international relations stacked against the interest of developing states generally and African states in particular. This article examines these issues and seeks to prove that there are grave inequities in the established systems of international adjudication/arbitration. The paper examines the record of three leading institutions of international dispute resolution with particular reference to their work involving developing states of Africa and beyond. The first two, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) are scrutinised from the perspective of their staffing and organisation, the applicable jurisprudence they maintain and particularly their jurisprudence in relation to two recent disputes involving African states. The aim is to establish whether the international courts continue to maintain a bias towards the interests of richer western states and whether the law continues to perpetuate the injustices of the colonial era. The paper also examines the GATT/WTO dispute resolution systems in order to establish whether the international law espoused by these institutions through their dispute resolution mechanisms have also been tainted by a bias towards the interests of the richer western states. The hypothesis to be tested, therefore, is that both inadvertently and sometimes deliberately these leading institutions have underdeveloped international laws to maintain the strategic and political interests of a few leading western states. The paper, therefore, suggests alternative futures to reduce the effects of the problems highlighted and

This paper examines the admissibility and probative weight of evidence derived from software on board fishing vessels in several jurisdictions within the EU and defines the legal obstacles and likely impediments to its value. Furthermore, the study describes and analyses the legal situation in the different EU member states regarding the use and legal acceptance of evidence derived from electronic sources and data contained in electronic documents. The study also considers the practice among public authorities in certain European States to adopt electronic documents as official in consonance with the laws implementing the EU directive on electronic signature.

Controversy persists as to whether or not international law is Eurocentric in nature and international relations are stacked against the interests of developing States in general and African States in particular. This article examines these issues and seeks to prove that there are grave inequities in the established systems of international adjudication and arbitration. It does so by examining the record of the two foremost international courts—the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. In particular, the article offers a detailed analysis of their jurisprudence in relation to two recent disputes involving African States—the Case concerning the Land And Maritime Boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria (Cameroon v. Nigeria: Equatorial Guinea Intervening) and the Decision Regarding the Delimitation of the Border between The State of Eritrea and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. The article concludes that the international law espoused and practiced by the leading international courts and tribunals is no more than a means of maintaining the sanctity of past colonial acts and solidifying the continuing interests of the older and more developed States.