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The aim and purpose of the thesis is to examine and set out the case for a modernised impeachment process for the United Kingdom. The thesis identifies and considers the arguments for a new impeachment process to operate within, and buttress, existing forms of political accountability at Westminster. It considers the counter-arguments and issues and problems involved. It will argue that the authority of the UK Parliament has been weakened in recent years and that impeachment could perform a valuable part in strengthening its role, functions, and power within the country's unwritten constitution. The thesis examines the present law and history on impeachment in the United Kingdom, which today is widely regarded as having fallen into desuetude and its procedures inappropriate for modern conditions. It will examine how impeachment operates in two countries, the United States and Denmark, selected respectively for their marked differences and similarities to the United Kingdom's political and constitutional system, for the purposes of illumination and possible lessons for a new impeachment process for the United Kingdom. The subject is one of topicality and considerable public interest by reason of some recent high-profile political controversies, such as the two impeachments of President Trump in the US, and calls for former Prime Minister Tony Blair to be impeached in the United Kingdom for his alleged misconduct over the military invasion of Iraq. This thesis provides a balanced and independent examination of the case for a new impeachment process for the United Kingdom, concluding that it would have a valuable role to play in the future development of the United Kingdom's system of politics and government. It concludes by setting out a detailed model for the structure, working, and effect of impeachment.

Administrative law requires that public authorities do not make decisions that are, in a particular sense, unreasonable. Yet there is remarkably little clarity about what this requirement amounts to. This thesis develops a new theoretical account of the reasonableness standard and argues that such a standard is a moral imperative in administrative law. There are four central components to my account. The first is an organising distinction between substantive reasonableness (the reasonableness of what is decided) and deliberative reasonableness (the reasonableness of the process of reasoning leading to a decision). The second component is a conception of reasonableness as a standard of relativised justification. Substantive reasonableness, I argue, requires a decision to be justified relative to, or from the perspective of, some eligible view of the balance of reasons, where the range of eligible views reflects the court's institutional and constitutional position, at some distance from the primary decision. Third, I show how reasonableness requires adequate deliberation in the process of reaching a decision. Deliberative reasonableness includes requirements to gather sufficient evidence, to weigh and balance the relevant considerations, and to avoid substantial 'structural' irrationalities-incoherent relations between beliefs, intentions, and other attitudes. The final component of my argument is a moral principle that places special emphasis on the idea of safeguards. In the absence of appropriate safeguards, those affected by government decisions are subjected to an unjustifiably high risk of wrongdoing, and if the state proceeds without such safeguards it manifests insufficient moral regard for those under its authority. I argue that a standard of substantive reasonableness is an appropriately general safeguard against heterogenous wrongs that might be committed in public administration. The standard of deliberative reasonableness, meanwhile, reduces the risk that government decisions are wrongful by ensuring that they proceed on the basis of sufficiently reliable reasoning.

Public inquiries are major instruments of accountability, convened to address matters of public concern. Every time a new inquiry is convened, decisions are made by government ministers and inquiry chairs to determine their form and nature, which in turn affect their independence, powers, subject matter, and openness to public scrutiny. This research is a systematic, library-based analysis of: witness evidence to the 2013-14 House of Lords Select Committee on the Inquiries Act on the law and practice of public inquiries, legislation, case law and other documentary sources to observe, in practice, what political and legal influence is being exerted on the form and nature of public inquiries, by whom, and to what effect. The research uses a mixed-method approach of inductive analysis and critical examination of secondary data; doctrinal legal research; and broader desk-based research. The research found that attempts by parliamentary committees to reform the decisionmaking process have been largely unsuccessful, with successive governments rejecting attempts to restrict the power of the minister. The courts' involvement has been restricted to clarifying the legal requirements for an effective inquiry. There is a statutory framework for public inquiries. However, the research found that the form and nature of public inquiries has been evolving within and outside that statutory framework, not through legislative change, nor directly because of action through the courts, but through political pressure exerted at the level of individual inquiries, often due to conflicting expectations about the role of an inquiry. The research concludes that: this provides an arbitrary and inconsistent source of scrutiny; the conflicting expectations must be addressed; and the recent move towards greater formal consultation is welcome. It recommends that future reviews of the public inquiry process be addressed not only to government but more widely and urges greater public education to enhance wider public scrutiny.

This thesis answers a twofold question regarding the nature and normativity of constitutional conventions, making special references to three jurisdictions, the UK, US and Greece. Conventions are political rules that regulate the constitutional edifice. The normativity of conventions is based on the coordination of political actors toward the principal goal of enhancing democratic accountability. They are a species of the genus of constitutional norms, with their distinguishing characteristic being non-enforceability in court, a quality that safeguards an area of autonomy for political actors. Thus, issues arising out of conventional rules are resolved in political fora, like the electorate and the Parliament. The analysis begins with the theoretical positions regarding conventions in the three jurisdictions in order to examine the influence of academic tradition: Greek and UK scholarship represent opposite approaches on the issue of conventions, while in the US conventions have received relatively little attention from theorists. Next, conventions are shown to be normative. They guide the conduct of political actors, either limiting or enabling their action, and involving negative consequences—‘political difficulties’—for those who breach the rules. The genus, constitutional norms, and differentia, non-enforceability of conventions, are explained, associating the latter with the choice of a political forum for the resolution of the relevant issues. Conventions and the UK ‘political constitution’ are closely connected; conventions are the central case of political constitutional regulation through a normative, Aristotelean view of politics. The reason behind the normativity of conventions is not content-free coordination but rather coordination towards a purpose, that of enhancing democratic accountability. This is why conventions retain their importance today. The reason for their existence is of particular importance for dealing with new challenges, allowing flexible regulation of new areas of constitutional activity and providing essential support for the democratic coexistence of political and constitutional actors.

The Eurozone crisis has prompted the institutionalisation of austerity through the new European economic governance, thereby intensifying the already existent collapse of social protections into the Union’s market logic. The Thesis will examine the way European economic constitutionalism may interfere with social constitutional elements, by placing at the heart of the particular thematisation the crisis-hit Cyprus. For the realisation of this task, the study will use as a methodological tool the schema of the many European constitutions offered by Kaarlo Tuori and Klaus Tuori in ‘The Eurozone Crisis: A Constitutional Analysis’. The distinction between the Economic and the Social Constitutions of Europe will be particularly employed to illuminate the two constitutions’ relationships and interactions, while the consideration of the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus will be undertaken to offer a picture that better reflects the wider European Social Constitution. Hence, the historical development of Cyprus’ social constitutional dimension will be considered, as well as domestic litigation on anti-crisis measures and relevant CJEU cases. The focus on the judicial protection of fundamental rights in the context of the Cypriot financial crisis will offer the possibility of tracing patterns between EU crisis law and the Social Constitution that are not common in all EU Member States, while contrary to Tuori and Tuori’s belief that the power of the social constitutional dimension is diminished due to its reliance on the Member States, the Thesis will support that the Social Constitution of Europe can still rely on domestic courts, as they can be attentive to the substantial content of domestic social and labour protections.

This thesis examines the changing role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) from the perspective of its task of conducting constitutional review of EU legislation. It addresses a gap in the existing literature by providing a systematic analysis of how the methodology and intensity of constitutional review has changed over time. By focusing upon federalism and fundamental rights cases, it argues that a series of significant shifts may be detected in the jurisprudence of the Court since the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty. In marked contrast with earlier periods in its history, the Court now subjects EU legislation to high-intensity review in cases of serious interference with the EU's core constitutional principles. The Court has also adopted an increasingly "process-oriented" approach to constitutional review in recent years. This involves heightened scrutiny of the legislative process and evidence base upon which contested EU legislation was enacted. The result has been a gradual infiltration of procedural review into constitutional adjudication. These developments in the methodology and intensity of constitutional review form the basis for evaluating the changing role of the CJEU over time. It is contended that the case law reveals much about the contemporary, post-Lisbon role of the Court and, crucially, how this differs from previous periods in the history of European integration. Whereas the Court has long been criticised for failing to subject EU legislation to meaningful judicial scrutiny, there is growing evidence that the Court now takes its responsibility for constitutional review more seriously. Furthermore, recent judgments demonstrate the Court to be an institutional actor that is responsive to the wider legal and political context in which it now operates. These developments give rise to a reconsideration of exiting accounts which depict the CJEU as an "activist" or unwaveringly "pro-integrationist" institution. When viewed from the largely unexplored perspective of the evolution of constitutional review, it is concluded that the Court now engages in a finely calibrated, variable intensity approach to such review. In so doing, the Court has finally assumed the role of a veritable Constitutional Court whose primary role is one of upholding the checks and balances within a more mature EU legal order.

For many, including the majority of the Supreme Court in the ADI 4650 case, war chest and dependence corruption apparently occurred in Brazil. This thesis investigates, through case studies, whether the appearance of those types of political finance corruption impacted the confidence we should have in the democratic integrity of antitrust legislation and its enforcement; and concludes that this confidence has been impaired, at least partially. Considering that, when it comes to political finance corruption, mere appearance is enough to justify regulatory reforms, the question that then arises is how the law of democracy should be framed to promote the appearance of electoral integrity. The thesis advances a proposal to foster the appearance that elections reflect a 'free formation of public opinion', and, in that sense, it argues that political finance and media regulation should adopt that as a paradigm. By arguing that legislation aimed to promote media access and impartiality of broadcast corporations during elections is not (and perhaps will never be) enough to satisfactorily diminish the influence of media economic power over elections in Brazil, the thesis proposes media regulation based on both democratic distribution and the power to impact public opinion. When it comes to the competition between political parties and their candidates, the thesis argues that vouchers could help to solve the controversy regarding the distribution of parties' public resources but that, in any event, caps should be introduced to prevent predominant influence on public opinion. The paradigm also provides an answer to the dilemma faced by judges whenever they must determine what level of illegal spending is sufficient to distort an election: under a Rawlsian account of democracy, if the illegal practice allowed the candidate to have more than 30% of total electoral spending, there is a presumption that it distorted the election - under a Schumpeterian perspective of democracy, that threshold could be adjusted to 50%.

This thesis has two objectives. The first is to reflect on the social foundations of legal change, and of change in constitutional law in particular, by developing HLA Hart’s account of ultimate rules of recognition. It argues that any change in accordance with pre-existing ultimate rules of recognition should be viewed as meaningfully coming from within a legal system. This is so even if the change in question is not a result of an exercise of a legal power to make law. Thus, rules of recognition provide an independent ground of lawfulness of legal change. However, as customary social rules, they also open the law to change that does not obey any pre-existing legal conditions of change. Such change cannot happen through an exercise of a legal power to make law, but it is here argued that an alternative notion of a ‘legal ability’ to influence change should be used. The thesis also argues that such change of ultimate rules ought to be seen as revolutionary in some, but not all, instances. Second, the thesis applies the jurisprudential framework of rules of recognition to the debates about constitutionality of constitutional change (but only in respect to change in constitutional law). It argues that some kinds change in constitutional law, perceived as normal by participants of legal practices, cannot be understood as ‘constitutional’ on a prominent view which identifies constitutionality of change with it being a result of an exercise of a legal power to effect the change. This ‘powers view’ is deficient because it does not appreciate the role of ultimate rules of recognition in grounding lawfulness of legal change. The thesis analyses the complex nexus of amendment powers, pretended powers (‘pious fictions’), and rules of recognition, thus giving a jurisprudentially sophisticated picture of constitutional change.

This study challenges the positivist view of the Korean Constitution, which sees it merely as an assemblage of rules and statutes defining its citizens' status and setting out codes of conduct for the government, or mapping the government's institutional arrangements. Prevalent in Korean constitutional thought and practice, this view wholly fails to capture what it implies for how the polity governs or is governed. Because it assumes that the state and its constitutional law came into being prior to any structure of political entitlement, Korean constitutional scholarship has focused only its textual meaning and assessing the relative weight of individual statutes or articles of the Constitution. This has narrowed scholarly inquiry into the political significance of the Constitution into a dispute over the source of sovereignty. The dissertation aims to (re)discover the political nature of the Korean constitution with the 1962 and 1972 constitutions.

Constitutional review usually focuses on the positive actions of lawmakers in relation to enacted legislation. However, can constitutional violations arise out of the negative actions of the lawmakers? This situation may be called "legislative omission" which happens when the lawmakers breach their duty to enact laws required by the constitution. If the negative actions of lawmakers can cause constitutional violations, how can this kind of violations be reviewed? The constitutional judiciary may adopt this mission in some countries as a kind of constitutional review, and some other countries regulate specifically the method of practising this monitoring. However, recognising and monitoring this kind of constitutional violation is still relatively new and even identifying this problem is still not clear enough. Thus, this thesis is an attempt to clarify this legal phenomenon deeply by studying several issues related to its definition, types, and identifying the reasons which cause it, on one side. Then it is an attempt to examine the role of the constitutional judiciary to remedy this problem, the kinds of decisions which may be issued by judges in this context and how can this kind of monitoring be justified, on another side.

In this thesis I argue that, in liberal democracies, parliaments should enjoy sovereignty in constitutional decision making and I criticize the idea of judicial supremacy; this is the idea that courts should have the power to strike down legislation when they find it violates the basic values and principles of a constitutional order. After an introductory chapter where I explain the relevance and outline of my argument, in chapter two I critically examine three areas of disagreement between defenders and detractors of judicial supremacy: legal indeterminacy, the global judicialization of politics and the empirical question about the effects of courts in the protection of fundamental rights. In chapter three I tum to normative positivism in order to tie majority rule with the democratic authority of law and I also defend the desirability of judicial moral reasoning for the authority of law in liberal democracies. In chapter four I draw a line between imperfect yet full democracies and other political systems and I then use the distinction to support my argument in favour of parliamentary sovereignty in the former contexts. I also expand on what form this majoritarian democracy should take by incorporating agonistic critiques of liberalism into constitutional theory. In chapter five I develop a distinctive account of popular constitutionalism that acknowledges the legal nature of constitutions while defending popular and parliamentary sovereignty and I critically examine the relation between different forms of constitutionalism and the phenomena of populism. I conclude the thesis with a brief summary of my argument against strong judicial review of legislation.

This thesis investigates the ways in which party and electoral laws exclude minor political parties from the representative political arena in Turkey. Most attention in the previous empirical research has focused principally on how electoral systems condition the breakthrough of minor parties. What makes this thesis original in its own field of scholarship is that it takes a more comprehensive approach to the treatment of minor parties in the law. By taking Pedersen's 'lifespan' approach (1982) to political parties as the main reference point for its empirical model and refining it in certain respects, the study starts the investigation from the very initial stage of party-building, and examines in depth the influences of the legal rules of party organisations, ballot access, electoral system and party finance. The empirical model of the thesis relies on a typology of party lifespan around four legal thresholds: the threshold of registration (party on the register), the threshold of authorization (party on the ballot), the threshold of representation (party in the parliament) and the threshold of public party funding. The thesis ultimately provides a holistic view as to whether or not the law in Turkey is conducive to the rise of smaller political parties. If the matter here is the rise 'on paper' (on the register), the answer that has emerged is quite positive. Setting up a political party in Turkey has always been governed with quite a liberal form of law, and in practice has been an uncomplicated venture for enterprising politicians. If it is meant rather as the capability of inserting themselves into political mainstream, then the answer emerging for the post-1980 legal regime in particular is not so positive. The thesis argues that the crux of the matter in the post-1980 period in particular is not how to bring a political party into existence, but rather how to create and sustain a viable organization which is sufficiently 'national' in character to surpass the high thresholds of authorization and representation. In this struggle, party financing also emerges to be a crucial factor. The study found that most of the electoral parties in Turkey are not able to raise enough funding to design and deliver effective electoral campaigns in order to stand a realistic chance in passing the thresholds under study. The party finance regime not only fails to curb the great disparity of private financing between major and minor parties, but also weakens the competitive position minor parties in elections further by overfunding their major rivals.

The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 enacted on 15 July 2014, is Ireland's first pan-sectoral whistleblowing law. The purpose of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 is described in its preamble as being 'An Act to make provision for and in connection with the protection of persons from the taking of action against them in respect of the making of certain disclosures in the public interest and for connected purposes.' The aim of this research is to determine whether the 2014 Act is fulfilling its purpose of providing protection to disclosers, as set out in its preamble. This thesis contributes to knowledge by identifying the weaknesses of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 that are undermining its purpose and makes suggestions for reform in order to remedy these weaknesses at an early stage before the protected disclosures protection system in Ireland becomes futile. For the purpose of this research, an assessment of the case law under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 from 15 July 2014 to 16 July 2018 was undertaken to highlight certain patterns emerging from the use, interpretation, and application of the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. An assessment of the prescribed persons system under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 was also undertaken in order to ascertain whether the system is functioning as intended. In addition, an analysis of prescribed persons' compliance with the governmental guidance on protected disclosures procedures was carried out. This analysis focussed on the non-statutory framework implemented by the government to complement the legislative framework. The research also included an evaluation of the difficulties faced by organisations when implementing protected disclosures procedures in relation to balancing the rights of the discloser and the rights of the alleged wrongdoer. This thesis concludes that the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 is not fulfilling its purpose and that urgent action is required to be taken, in line with the recommendations made in this thesis.

This thesis approaches the Weimar constitutional debate by focusing on its most significant participants, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt. It reveals that this debate concerned the constitutional question in the context of the contradiction between the democratic modern state and the capitalist economy. It was in that sense a debate on the 'riddle' that was identified by the young Marx concerning the problem of the political form through which modern societies are regulated, caught between the political question, namely that of political power, and by the social question, namely that of the socio-economic structures of power. In effect the term “political constitutionalism” captures this tension through which Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt approached the constitutional question. The historical context of the Weimar Republic is important in order to bring into the light the theories of Kelsen and Schmitt (and, secondarily, of other Weimar theorists who also approached the constitutional question through similar problématiques). Regarding this context, it is, firstly, demonstrated that the Weimar Constitution was a post-traditional constitution that dealt both with the political question (the introduction of parliamentary democracy) and with the “social question” through its “economic constitution”. It is, secondly, demonstrated how the relationship between political and socio-economic power affected, in turn, the constitutional order throughout Weimar by leading ultimately to its structural transformation. This thesis argues, firstly, that Schmitt’s solution to Marx’s riddle dissociated the constitution from its democratic promise in order to protect a concept of constitutionalism that would maintain the 19th century liberal political-economic divide. Hence, it ended up as a theory of “authoritarian liberalism” that legitimized the “structural transformation” of the Weimar constitutional order between 1930-32; secondly, that Kelsen’s solution, while placing emphasis on the association of the constitution with the democratic promise, underplayed the power of the capitalist mode of production to affect both the State and the constitutional order itself. As a result, and although he defended the Republic and the Weimar Constitution, he could not see that the constitution itself was traversed by the power of capital in its entanglement with the mode of production.

This thesis studies the principle of legality in English and Australian administrative law relating to their legal systems' legal culture and the determination of the scope of judicial review of administrative action. It demonstrates that the distinctive constitutional orders that are embedded in legal culture of England and Australia, influence the courts' deep understanding of what legality means and covers. These different understandings result in the English and Australian courts applying different doctrinal approaches when determining the grounds of judicial review, namely, error of law, jurisdictional error, jurisdictional fact, rationality, proportionality and substantive legitimate expectations. On the one hand, the English courts have flexibility to apply various justifications, doctrines and applications in their determination of the mentioned grounds of judicial review. These are products of the English legal culture based on the absence of a written constitution, the balancing process between parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law, and the fluid separation of powers between court and executive. On the other hand, the Australian courts apply relatively fixed doctrinal approaches to determine these grounds under a central approach of jurisdictional error. This is because, whether empowered or limited, they rigidly follow the framework of separation of powers prescribed in the written constitution, discussed as distinctive elements of Australian legal culture. Rather than supporting the way of one legal system over the other, this thesis upholds a comprehensive understanding of the English and Australian determination of the grounds of judicial review in the light of their deep understanding of legality and legal cultures. The implications of these methodological approaches constitute an in-depth explanation of the way common law judicial reviews are embedded in different legal systems.

This thesis aims to provide a critical appraisal of the validity and enforcement of arbitration agreements and clauses in the context of administrative contracts. The proposed thesis will consider the potential impacts of Shariah on arbitration proceedings initiated in Saudi Arabia, with particular attention focused on the requirements of the applicable procedural and substantive laws. Drawing on the administrative systems of France and Egypt, this thesis will consider how other civil law systems have balanced the rights of private parties with the unilateral authority of public administration, and the extent to which these systems have recognised the rights of private parties to resolve disputes through the mechanisms of arbitration.

According to Article 6 of the Kuwaiti Constitution, ‘The System of Government in Kuwait shall be democratic, under which sovereignty resides in the people, the source of all powers’. However, the domination of the Executive’s powers is a remarkable feature in Kuwait’s political system. Such uncontrolled powers contradict the basic values of constitutionalism. The main objective of this thesis is to promote a soft-transformation toward constitutionalising the Executive’s powers in Kuwait so as to reflect, more faithfully, the desired ethical values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the separation of powers. Parliament and the judiciary have been identified as the most competent mechanisms to undertake the control of executive power in Kuwait. Yet, the constitutional structure of the executive power system and its controlling mechanisms lack the necessary features to apply this control effectively. The hypothesis outlined above was explored by three different methodologies; firstly, by analysing the constitutional structure of the Executive’s power system and measuring it against the ethical values of constitutionalism; secondly, supporting this theoretical approach with fieldwork by interviewing experts; and thirdly, by comparing the control of executive power with the UK’s law and experience in order to utilise a ‘transfer policy’ method. The main findings of the research indicate that the Executive has obtained arbitrary powers that weaken its accountability system. Thus, the study suggests policies to be adopted by Kuwait in order to empower parliament and the judiciary to exercise an effective control over the Executive’s powers.

The aims of this thesis are, first, to consider peace and violence in the constitution drafting and implementation processes, and to return to constitutional theory, proposing that peace constitutions are distinctive in their source; and second, to show that courts, in reviewing peace constitutions, are in fact navigating between an elite pact and a more open constitutional way of doing business, where both remain important to any emergent constitutionalism. To do so, the intention of this thesis is to assess the peace constitution in both the short and long-term, by addressing two sets of questions: (1) what is the process of constitution-making as part of the political settlement and what type of constitutional arrangement result; and (2) how have courts interpreted peace constitutions and in what way (if any) are they engaging with the peace process? This thesis approaches these questions through a critical review of the legal and political literature. The research design is principally in comparative constitutional law, which as a specialised legal field has adopted its own methodological framework. The project is adopting the functional methodological approach, as defined in the comparative law literature. The two questions under consideration in this thesis have dedicated chapters, using separate illustrative cases. There are twenty-three possible cases identified by International IDEA as classifying as ‘peace constitutions; since 1990. In the chapter on the distinctiveness of peace constitutions, I focus on three of these cases: the DRC, Nepal and Burundi. The chapter on the role of court looks at Colombia, Northern Ireland and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The reason for having, in effect, two-sets of case studies is dictated by an acknowledgement that locating generalizable cases is unlikely, as each case is context specific; nonetheless, it is possible to locate common themes and dilemmas that are present in the political settlement processes across time and place. Further, the influences, language and practices impacting these processes are always changing, so that processes that were completed before certain watershed points will present different learning outcomes.

This thesis is an exercise in arguing for an 'anatomical approach to administrative law'. In doing so the thesis aims to show, broadly, two main things. Firstly, that if we pull administrative law apart and examine the basic legal and normative structures in play we see that those structures are both complex and varied in three core senses: administrative law doctrine interacts with an array of different administrative schemes, administrative law doctrine intervenes to protect a variety of different values and interests and administrative law is concerned with legal relationships of different kinds. Secondly, that by pulling apart administrative law in this way it becomes possible to construct understandings of particular doctrines within it which are capable of capturing the legal and normative complexities with which judges must grapple in giving effect to them. The later chapters of the thesis will make use of three case studies of central doctrines within administrative law - procedural fairness, legitimate expectations and standing - through which to demonstrate this. Throughout this thesis the anatomical approach to administrative law for which the thesis argues is juxtaposed to an alternative approach: 'monism'. A scholar making use of a monistic approach would proceed by seeking to identify some singular 'organising concept' which is capable of unifying administrative law. A core aim of this thesis is to demonstrate, through an exploration of one important, and increasingly influential, monistic approach to administrative law (the 'public interest conception'), why administrative law is not amenable to analysis of this kind. The basic legal and normative components which make up administrative law, it is argued, are too complex and varied for the subject to be adequately analysed through the lens of a singular 'master idea or principle'.

This thesis explores the use of equity and its principles in the field of public law. It asks whether the relationship between local authorities and their service users can properly be understood as being a fiduciary relationship. In considering this question the thesis examines the extent to which the relationship is analogous to trusteeship or whether it is some other sui generis category. This requires exploration of core elements of trust and loyalty and analysis, within a local government context of the debate as to whether fiduciary duties are confined to having a proscriptive role or whether, as some advocate they have a wider prescriptive function. The relationship between local authorities and their service users is not considered to be a fiduciary relationship within the traditional class of relationships so classified. Notwithstanding, there are instances within that relationship where the characteristics resemble in part application of a sui generis label. For example, in the realm of local authorities and their interaction with the elderly, child care and youth counselling services it is possible to apply a quasi - trusteeship role. This categorisation cannot however be extended to the majority of interactions between local authorities and their service users which usually fall within a contract or tortious setting. The main reason in not being able to identify the relationship between local authorities and their service users as fully fiduciary is the inability to point to a central core of loyalty between the parties which is so necessary for a finding of the existence of a fiduciary relationship. The loyalty inhibitor is the polycentric essence of much of local authority decision making, which is made in a very diverse community group often with different complex needs and aspirations all clambering for attention. Further, as local authorities are public bodies they must accommodate the ‘public interest’ in any decision making process and outcome. These factors combine to make a very different decision making environment than the way fiduciary obligations can be exercised in private law and makes the hurdles higher for an exercise of translation to the public law sphere. The purpose of this analysis is to explore whether the roving commission of equity has any application to the public law field. Has equity died and shrivelled, or does equity still have the ability to flourish and accommodate new situations and changes in social morals and norms, ‘yet maintain its core values and norms, without which no society can survive, let alone flourish.’? Notwithstanding, these hurdles this author considers that equity still has a role to play in public law, none more so than in the day to day decision making of local authorities as well as in judicial review proceedings. Equity can bring a contextual approach so necessary when substantive review is applied. Equity has proved to be a robust flexible adaptable tool, even in a complex modern environment. For example, the remedies it has fashioned of injunctions, declaratory relief and freezing orders to mention a few , as well as aiding the common law in its application of trust principles to a deserted wife’s equity, where the title was in one party’s sole name. This author espouses a principle of stewardship which can be applied as an additional substantive review tool in the judicial tool box, along with Wednesbury and proportionality. Structuring substantive review is a major current debate in public law both judicially and academically: there is no valid reason why ethical principles such as stewardship-of person, place, property and purpose should not be a valid contributory player.

The Nigerian judicial system is currently in a state of distress. Not only has the judiciary been trailed by allegations of corruption, incompetence and god-fatherism amongst others, the wheels of justice in Nigeria are slowly grinding to a near halt. This is because of the large and growing case list of courts as well as the recurrent industrial strike actions embarked upon by court staff. As a solution to this crisis, stakeholders have put forward a number of suggestions, one of which is the use of alternative dispute resolution methods like domestic arbitration, as a solution to the problems of the judiciary and as a viable alternative to the court system. As we will however come to see in this thesis, Nigeria’s Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1988 (“Arbitration Act”), which is based on the UNCITRAL Model Law 1985, is not only outdated, it is also for many reasons not suitable and relevant to a developing country as Nigeria. For example, the existing Arbitration Act fails to take the legal and social idiosyncrasies of the Nigerian nation into consideration. Furthermore, the Act fails to incorporate the pre-existing and judicially recognized customary arbitration practice into the Act. In addition, the Nigerian Arbitration framework contains a number of anti-arbitration provisions, which have clearly inhibited the growth of domestic arbitration in Nigeria. Moreover, between 1988 and now, a number of beneficial changes have occurred within the sphere of arbitration and from which the Nigerian arbitration framework can draw lessons. All these among others, make the Nigerian Arbitration Act an unsuitable alternative to the court system in Nigeria. This thesis therefore recommends a bespoke domestic arbitration framework, which takes account of the legal and social idiosyncrasies of the Nigerian nation as well as recent but relevant domestic arbitration practices in similar jurisdictions as Nigeria. Among other recommendations, the proposed framework borrows a leaf from the deeply rooted and judicially recognised customary arbitration practice in Nigeria. Furthermore, in a bid to identify and incorporate relevant provisions and practices that have emerged within the sphere of domestic arbitration between 1988 and now, we undertake a comparative analysis of the Ghanaian Alternative Dispute Resolution Act 2010, the UNCITRAL Model Law 2006, the English Arbitration Act 1996 as well as the Uniform Act on Arbitration 1999 of OHADA. It is believed that this modern but tailored framework will encourage the use of domestic arbitration in Nigeria and by extension ameliorate the problems in the judicial system.

This thesis investigates the question of whether judicial review of legislation is a hindrance to democracy. My main claim is that the existing literature on this topic fails to pay adequate regard to the symbolic significance of political institutions, that is, the role that legislatures and courts play in the popular imagination. I argue that we should not view constitutional systems merely as decision-making mechanisms, since a society’s institutional structure will colour its sense of political agency and shape the way in which citizens view their relationships with political officials and with one another. Different constitutional structures accordingly project different visions of constitutionalism and democracy. In particular, I argue, representative government should be viewed not merely as a compromise between equality of input and quality of output, but as a distinctively valuable form of government in its own right. The representative assembly serves as the focal point for public political debate and symbolises a commitment to government through an inclusive process of deliberation. Legislative supremacy – the practice of accepting the enactments of a representative assembly as the decisions of the people as a whole – can therefore allow the law to be seen as the output of the political power of a self-governing people. Judicial review, on the other hand, will tend to signify a set of boundaries around the democratic political process, thus truncating the people’s shared sense of self-government.

The importance of political parties for contemporary representative democracies is beyond dispute. Despite their significance for state-level democracy, political parties continue to be regarded as oligarchical and to be criticised because of their internal practices. For this reason, intra-party democracy (IPD) warrants in-depth analysis. This thesis investigates IPD in Turkey, primarily from the perspective of participatory democracy, with the purpose of suggesting reforms to the Turkish Political Parties Law (TPPL). Turkish political parties and Turkish party regulation provide an interesting case because there is a significant difference between mature democracies and Turkey regarding IPD regulation. IPD in established democracies has always been regarded as a private concern of parties and has been left unregulated. IPD in Turkey, by contrast, is provided for both by the constitution and the TPPL. Although IPD is a constitutional and legal requirement in Turkey, however, political parties in fact display a high level of non-democratic administration. The main reason is that the TPPL only pays lip service to the idea of IPD and requires no specific measures apart from establishing a party congress with a representative form of democracy. By establishing and holding party congresses, political parties are perceived as conforming to the requirements of IPD under the law. In addition, the contested nature of democracy as a concept has impeded the creation of efficacious legal principles. Thus, the existing party law fails to tackle the lack of IPD within political parties and, for this reason, is in need of reform. Furthermore, almost every Turkish party’s own constitution highlights the importance of IPD and promises IPD. However, these declared commitments to IPD in their constitutions alone, especially in countries where the democratic culture is weak, are unlikely to make much difference in practice. Accordingly, external regulation is necessary to ensure the protection of the rights and interests of the party members with regards to their participation in intra-party decision-making processes. Nevertheless, in spite of a general consensus in favour of reforming the TPPL, a lack of consensus exists as to what kind of reforms should be adopted. This thesis proposes that reforming the TPPL in line with an approach based on participatory democracy could provide better IPD within Turkish political parties, citing as evidence comparative case studies of the participatory practices for policy-making, leadership selection and candidate selection in mature democracies. This thesis also analyses membership registration and the effect of state funding on IPD, which are highly problematic in Turkey and represent impediments to the flourishing of IPD.

This socio-legal thesis has explored the factors responsible for explaining whether and how redress mechanisms control bureaucratic decision-making. The research considered the three principal institutions of administrative justice: courts, tribunals, and ombudsman schemes. The field setting was the local authority education area and the thesis examined bureaucratic decision-making about admissions to school, home-to-school transport, and Special Educational Needs (SEN). The thesis adopted a qualitative approach, using interviews and documentary research, within a multiple embedded case study design. The intellectual foundations of the research were inter-disciplinary, cutting across law, socio-legal studies, public administration, organization studies, and social policy. The thesis drew on these scholarly fields to explore the nature of bureaucratic decision-making, the extent to which it can be controlled and the way that learning occurs in bureaucracies and, finally, the extent to which redress mechanisms might exercise control. The concept of control was studied across all its dimensions – in relation both to ex post control in specific cases and the more challenging notion of ex ante or structuring control. The aim of the thesis was not to measure the prevalence of bureaucratic control by redress mechanisms, but to understand the factors that might explain its presence or absence in a particular area. The findings of the research have allowed for a number of analytical refinements and extensions to be made to existing theoretical and empirical understandings. 14 factors, along with 87 supporting propositions, have been set out with the aim of making empirically derived suggestions which can be followed up in future research. In terms of the thesis’ contribution to existing knowledge, its comparative focus and its emphasis on the broad notion of control offered the potential for new insights to be developed. Overall, the thesis claims to have made three contributions to the conceptual framework for understanding the exercise of control by redress mechanisms: it emphasizes the importance of ‘feedback’ in relation to the nature of the cases referred to redress mechanisms; it calls attention to the structure of bureaucratic decision-making as well as its normative character; and it discusses how the operational modes of redress mechanisms relate to their control functions.

This thesis claims that temporality can provide a novel means through which to distinguish between different types of judgment. Specifically, it focusses upon how the adjudicative process determines factual construction and argues that the resultant construction is, at least in part, contingent upon temporality. As the first of two starting points, the thesis begins by rejecting the subsumption thesis of judgment which states laws simply subsume facts that they ‘correspond to’. It attributes this rejection to the generality of laws and their flexibility as either rules or standards. Second of the two starting points, though related to the first, is what the thesis refers to as the ‘Kantian axiom’ which argues that time shapes consciousness. Extending this, the thesis posits that, filling in the lacuna created by the shortcomings of the subsumptive theory of judgment, adjudication’s temporality shapes its factual construction. Having established these preliminary points, the thesis describes the different ends of a spectrum of judgment in which legal decisions can tend toward. Adjudication as Cognition (abstract judgment), predicated I argue on a spatial-temporality at one end, and Adjudication as Understanding (concrete judgment), grounded on a creative reading of Bergsonian and Gadamerian temporality at the other. The main differences between these forms of judgment is the qualitatively different types of fact they produce, made possible through the temporalities upon which they are contingent. This results in different constructions of the subject and event (facts which law gives meaning to) which may impact upon ascriptions of responsibility. In addition, it is with adjudication as understanding that a potentially transformative form of judgment is possible and in which the radical difference of the subject and event of law emerges. Temporality is thus capable of reframing old problems of jurisprudence as well as articulating new ones. It argues that factual construction, in particular subjectivity is, in part, predicated upon time, and that temporality, as unproblematised, may conceal an exercise of judicial power. It also highlights the general marginalisation of temporality in (legal) modernity and reveals the ‘temporal trap’ of legal subjectivity in which futures are bound and pasts are arbitrarily selected.

The United States (US) Constitution’s Eighth Amendment includes a restriction on cruel and unusual punishments. Over the past fifty years the punishments clause has been developed by the US Supreme Court through its ‘evolving standards of decency’ (ESD) jurisprudence, restricting the range and application of lawful capital and non-capital penalties. Although the punishments clause has been evolved in the capital sphere such that the American death penalty is reaching a vanishing point, the Court has neglected to apply similar scrutiny in the non-capital setting, especially with respect to conditions of imprisonment. By undertaking an examination of the Eighth Amendment, a theoretical framework is developed in order to understand how the ESD principle has been applied, and to examine how a future constitutional challenge to disproportionate confinement conditions might materialise. This thesis contends that modern solitary confinement represents a recession of constitutional protection. It is argued that principles of morality underlying the Eighth Amendment create a bar to this severely disproportionate, under-reviewed, and often under-reported punishment. In reaching such a conclusion, Dworkin’s theory of interpretivism is applied to solitary confinement in a novel way. An interpretivist understands morality to have been an undercurrent in the drafting, adoption, application and, therefore, future interpretation of the Constitution. Moral principles trump majoritarian policies, and such an approach compels a curtailment of extreme solitary confinement under the Eighth Amendment’s ESD principle. Sources of morality relied on to reach such a conclusion are derived from the community and include traditional consensus, which is state counting, in addition to other elements selected for analysis due to their regular citation in Eighth Amendment decisions: public opinion, penological principles, transnational perspectives, and professional consensus. As a result, an original contribution is also made to the medico-legal literature, which has traditionally fixated on the psychiatric implications of confinement. Wider implications will extend to other areas of academic commentary, including professional consensus literature, and transnational law.

Poverty is an event in time. Only dynamic thinking can fully capture its reality. This thesis contends that human rights case law is based on a static perception of poverty inconsistent with the dynamic perception of poverty in economics. Failing to notice its temporal aspects, the examined courts consequently produce judgments that overlook essential aspects of this socio-economic phenomenon. This is puzzling, since in other contexts of constitutional human rights adjudication the passage of time bears a significant role. This means that for courts to switch from a static perspective to a dynamic perspective of poverty does not require new legal tools. The duration of poverty and change in poverty can be incorporated into judicial thinking using familiar norms and doctrines. The extent of poverty, whether it is transitory or a long-term situation, the chances of escaping it in the near future, the fluctuations in depth of poverty over the years, the probability that upon emerging from poverty one will be caught up in it again, the inheritance of poverty from parents to children: these are all time-related concerns that bear profound significance on the lives of poor people. A static examination not only overlooks these issues, but also neglects the essence of long-term poverty. Viewing poverty through the lens of time would reveal a broader and more complex human rights picture, producing a richer legal analysis, and, finally, leading to a more suitable remedy. This study examines cases that consider claims relating to the economic situation of poor people, concentrating on examples from France, Canada and Israel. The analysis reveals the temporal approach of each judgment and suggests an alternative, dynamic reading of poverty.

Qatar is among the fastest growing developing countries in all fields. Since the State of Qatar gained independence from the United Kingdom, the Qatari government has been focusing on the formation of state institutions to keep pace with global development. In 1971, Qatar released the first civil and commercial law. The country established the first step towards the separation of civil and commercial transactions of Islamic law. However, the ever-changing nature of business and global economy requires significant economic and societal changes. With the increase of foreign investors in Qatar, there had to be a law governing arbitration in contracts. Therefore, the government promulgated the arbitration clause in commercial contracts; the first code of civil and commercial procedure contains a chapter of the arbitration. However, the provisions of arbitration included in this law are not compatible with the UNCITRAL Model Law. Although there is a shortage in literature regarding arbitration in Qatar, several studies discussed issues related to arbitration in Qatar and called for the adoption of a new separate arbitration law in Qatar compatible with the UNCITRAL one. This prompted Qatar to work on a new draft law of arbitration, especially after the ratification of the New York Convention 1985 by Qatar. However, these studies did not cover other factors which affect arbitration; such as cultural attitude towards arbitration and issues affecting the practice of arbitration in Qatar. Unlike previous studies regarding arbitration in Qatar, this thesis uses multi-methods to get an answer of the main question of the research, which is: “Will the new Arbitration Draft Law solve all the issues related to arbitration in Qatar, thereby attracting international companies to Qatar and its law for their arbitration?” The thesis reviews the related literature in the first stage. Then it analyses interviews which were held with a number of arbitration stakeholders, the recent Qatari draft law of arbitration, the GCC unified arbitration draft law and the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) draft law. After that it conducts a comparison between the current provisions of arbitration, the Qatari arbitration draft law and the GCC unified arbitration draft law in light of the UNCITRAL Model Law and the Egyptian Arbitration Law. This multi-methods study results in recommendations which are listed in its conclusion. It is worth mentioning that both the Qatari arbitration draft law and the QFC draft law are considered for the first time in a research study. Also, the interviews which were held for the purpose of this research enrich the outcome as the participants were chosen from various categories of arbitration stakeholder, where some of them represent official entities; such as the Legislation Department of the Ministries Council and some of them are high ranking officials of these entities; such as the Minister of Justice.

This thesis examines the new regime brought in by the Localism Act 2011 for promoting and maintaining standards of conduct of members of English local government. It asks how practitioners can improve their practice in the implementation of new legislation addressing the issue of standards of behaviour of locally elected politicians. The legislation was highly controversial in reversing the approach taken by the previous Labour government of a national oversight regime and addresses the issue of public confidence in local elected representatives by leaving decisions to take action regarding standards to local authorities. This is a form of localism. The thesis adopts the methodology of action research combining two specific elements of insider action research and participative action research. This is achieved through reflective consideration of own practice and working with a regional partnership of public sector professionals charged with the responsibility of administering and applying the legislation to deal with complaints. The participants are at the most senior level of their professions and they contribute through rigorous semi structured interviews supported by public sector performance indicators. This provides robust qualitative and quantitative data which enables an original assessment of the implementation of a controversial piece of legislation. The thesis provides evidence to support the finding that the Localism Act's duty on local authorities to promote and maintain standards of conduct of members is subject to local culture and by the removal of the national oversight of the former Standards Board, Standards for England and the Audit Commission, standards can only be maintained and improved by close regard to the Committee for Standards in Public life guidance and practitioners working together as in the sample partnership applying best practice Critical Success Factors and actions to promote the raising of standards of elected members. This thesis identifies such Critical Success Factors and provides a narrative of the author's improvements in practice as the research proceeds. As action research is used as the method, it is intended that the findings of the research will be fed into further action research cycles.

Widely regarded as the first bourgeois Prime Minister of Greece, Eleutherios Venizelos, during his first tenure of office as Prime Minister in 1910-1912, is considered by many to have laid the foundations for the bourgeois modernisation of Greece. The parliamentary work conducted during this period has been highly praised, even by his adversaries and critics. This era is usually referred to as anorthosis (recovery) in the historiography of the period, and it is a common belief that because of anorthosis Greece experienced an unprecedented period of good governance and administration. However, except in the field of foreign policy, no substantial detailed research has been conducted into the political narrative of this crucial period in the transformation of Greece as a country. This thesis examines one critical part of Venizelos’ public policy programme, namely the public law legislation that provided the backbone of anorthosis. The aim of the thesis is to consider whether this wide-ranging legislative programme of reform provided the foundations for the country’s bourgeois modernisation. The research for the thesis analyses the intentions, content, and effects of the new laws dealing mainly with the amendment of the Constitution, the municipalities’ law reform and the so-called fiscal reform. A testimony to the quality and durable nature of this raft of reforming public legislation lies in the fact that many articles of the Constitution as then established are still standing and the municipality’s law introduced remained in force until 1997. The thesis also analyses the extent of Venizelos’ personal contribution to the formulation and passage of the public law legislation, particularly in the context of the inter-related political issues of day and his working relationships with the Opposition and with the Crown. Though anorthosis was not a one-man-show but the result of venizelism (Venizelos’ party ideology), the research undertaken for this thesis indicates that Venizelos was by far the most important and influential figure. The analysis reveals the nature and extent of his contribution to the reforming programme of public legislation, and includes a detailed study of his parliamentary speeches (as recorded in the Gazette of the Parliament’s Debates), and of contemporary press reports and the writings and speeches of other politicians of the day.

Fundamental laws in Uganda have demonstrated that the presidency must be granted command of the armed forces, as well as immunity from legal proceedings among other presidential privileges and powers. However, very few attempts have been made to question the origins of presidential authority and to circumscribe it exercise, in order to avoid the possibility of its misuse. As a result, the control of presidential authority in Uganda and in many other countries in Africa remains one of the most challenging issues in constitutional frameworks. This thesis argues that since its boundaries were drawn up by the British in 1894, up until 1995 when the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda 1995 was adopted, Uganda has been ruled under fundamental laws authored under the leadership or the influence of heads of state and governments. Such laws were designed to permanently grant state powers to the heads of state and governments under whose leadership or influence they were created, and it is from those laws that presidential authority as commonly conceived in Uganda has emerged. Therefore, because of the purpose for which those laws were designed, they have not provided sufficient constraints on heads of state and governments. This thesis seeks to answer the principal question as to whether the 1995 Constitution of Uganda which was written under the leadership of President Museveni and his NRM government is another such fundamental law.

This thesis examines the practice of parliamentary constitutional interpretation. Parliamentary constitutional interpretation is a form of reasoning used by parliamentarians to articulate the constitutional effect of a Bill, within the legislative process in Parliament. The significance of the practice is explored through a combination of empirical study and theoretical enquiry. The first part of the thesis describes and analyses parliamentary constitutional interpretation in three case studies, each on a different Government Bill from the 2010-2012 parliamentary session. Each study provides a fine-grained account of how parliamentarians interpreted the constitutional effect of each Bill and the role this interpretation played during the passage of the Bill. In order to identify the constitutional effect of a particular clause, parliamentarians interpret a range of constitutional norms including: constitutional principles, constitutional statutes and constitutional conventions. In each case study, parliamentary constitutional interpretation played an important role in shaping the constitutional effect of each Bill and holding the Government to account. The second part of the thesis uses the reality of the practice, as described in the case studies, to identify the value of parliamentary constitutional interpretation and to situate the practice within political constitutionalism. Two principal values of the practice are identified. Firstly, parliamentary constitutional interpretation can enhance the level of justification within the legislative process. Secondly, it can facilitate a distinctively parliamentary contribution to the normative content of the constitution. By expanding the role of legislative politics within the constitution, parliamentary constitutional interpretation can develop and strengthen the political model of constitutionalism. These values also serve as both a template for analysis of parliamentary performance and as a guide to parliamentary reform.

While thousands of cross-border disputes are resolved each year through institutional arbitration, there appears to be little understanding of the role of arbitral institutions. In particular, very little academic scholarship has been produced on the nature of the functions exercised by arbitral institutions in the proceedings they administer. This thesis seeks to rectify this gap by (1) identifying in the literature conventional assumptions as to the functions of arbitral institutions in the institutional arbitration process; (2) critically assessing such conventional assumptions; and (3) offering a novel and more realistic representation of the functions of arbitral institutions. This thesis is principally based on a systematic study of the activities performed by over 40 international arbitration institutions in their administration of cases. This study also examines court decisions on the nature of the functions exercised by such institutions in some leading civil law and common law jurisdictions. The thesis finds that arbitration institutions are conventionally portrayed in the literature in one of two ways: According to a first representation, arbitral institutions are mere administrators with no decision-making power whatsoever. According to another representation, while institutions are occasionally called upon to exercise some measure of decision-making, measures taken by institutions remain immaterial because of their alleged ‗administrative‘/‗non-jurisdictional‘ nature. In both instances, it is conventionally assumed that, contrary to arbitrators, arbitral institutions should not be concerned by due process when they discharge their duties. This thesis argues that these two conventional representations are difficult to reconcile with the diverse reality of institutional arbitration. While some institutions have a very limited involvement in the arbitrations conducted under their auspices, others participate more actively in their resolution. The thesis therefore concludes that arbitral institutions can be more accurately described as ancillary participants in the adjudicative process which decisions, insofar as they may occasionally be outcome-determinative, should call upon the application of some due process standards.

Sunset clauses are a commonly used statutory provision related to the temporary duration of various laws. Such clauses are scattered throughout the statute books. This thesis aims to shed light on the constitutional value of such clauses, in order to value them from the perspective of the separation of powers and the rule of law. We have an extant amount of literature on sunset clauses, especially regarding their utility in the United States. In the United Kingdom, we have a limited analysis with respect to specific fields, including emergency legislation. However, we lack a comprehensive analysis with regard to their constitutional value. This thesis’s analysis is conducted in three parts, separated into the historical, the positive, and the normative. All three parts of this thesis are interdependent, and the analysis of each subsequent part builds on the conclusion of its antecedent. The first part investigates the historical development of sunset clauses since the first Parliament in England. The positive analysis examines the contemporary utility of sunset clauses. Finally, the normative evaluation examines their interaction with several models of separation of powers as it values their impact on the rule of law. Depending on the separation of power model, such clauses play a role in the system of checks and balances. On the one hand, they impact the institutional relationship between the executive and legislative branches. On the other hand, they influence the interaction between the legislature and the courts. Although I acknowledge that their legislative use in limiting human rights diminishes the rule of law, they might have the exact opposite effect: on several occasions in the past, they were used to advance the rule of law, including the adoption of innovative legislation and the annulment of the death penalty. Indeed, this thesis attests to the constitutional value of sunset clauses.

This book, then, starts with a general statement: that regulators should try, wherever possible, to use the physical methodological tools presently available in order to draft better legislation. While such an assertion may be applied to the law in general, this work will concentrate on the much narrower area of Internet regulation and the science of complex networks The Internet is the subject of this book not only because it is my main area of research, but also because –without over-emphasising the importance of the Internet to everyday life– one cannot deny that the growth and popularisation of the global communications network has had a tremendous impact on the way in which we interact with one another. The Internet is, however, just one of many interactive networks. One way of looking at the complex and chaotic nature of society is to see it as a collection of different nodes of interaction. Humans are constantly surrounded by networks: the social network, the financial network, the transport network, the telecommunications network and even the network of our own bodies. Understanding how these systems operate and interact with one another has been the realm of physicists, economists, biologists and mathematicians. Until recently, the study of networks has been mainly theoretical and academic, because it is difficult to gather data about large and complex systems that is sufficiently reliable to support proper empirical application. In recent years, though, the Internet has given researchers the opportunity to study and test the mathematical descriptions of these vast complex systems. The growth rate and structure of cyberspace has allowed researchers to map and test several previously unproven theories about how links and hubs within networks interact with one another. The Web now provides the means with which to test the organisational structures, architecture and growth of networks, and even permits some limited prediction about their behaviour, strengths and vulnerabilities. The main objective of this book is first and foremost to serve as an introduction to the wider legal audience to some of the theories of complexity and networks. The second objective is more ambitious. By looking at the application of complexity theory and network science in various areas of Internet regulation, it is hoped that there will be enough evidence to postulate a theory of Internet regulation based on network science. To achieve these two goals, Chapter 2 will look in detail at the science of complex networks to set the stage for the legal and regulatory arguments to follow. With the increase in reliability of the descriptive (and sometimes predictive) nature of network science, a logical next step for legal scholars is to look at the legal implications of the characteristics of networks. Chapter 3 highlights the efforts of academics and practitioners who have started to find potential uses for network science tools. Chapter 4 takes this idea further, and explores how network theory can shape Internet regulation. The following chapters will analyse the potential for application of the tools described in the previous chapters, applying complexity theory to specific areas of study related to Internet Law. Chapter 5 deals with the subject of copyright in the digital world. Chapter 6 explores the issue of peer-production and user-generated content using network science as an analytical framework. Chapter 7 finishes the evidence section of the work by studying the impact of network architecture in the field of cybercrime, and asks whether the existing architecture hinders or assists efforts to tackle those problems. It is clear that these are very disparate areas of study. It is not the intention of this book to be overreaching in its scope, although I am mindful that it covers a lot of ground and attempts to study and describe some disciplines that fall outside of my intellectual comfort zone. While the focus of the work is the Internet, its applications may extend beyond mere electronic bits. Without trying to be over-ambitious, it is my strong belief that legal scholarship has been neglectful in that it has been slow to respond to the wealth of research into complexity. That is not to say that there has been no legal research on the topic, but it would seem that lawyers, legislators and policy-makers are reluctant to consider technical solutions to legal problems. It is hoped then that this work will serve as a stepping stone that will lead to new interest in some of the theories that I describe.

In the spirit of comparative political theory, this thesis analyzes the ideas that have shaped Western and Islamic constitutional discourse and assesses the extent to which they intersect at key historical and philosophical points. This goal is placed within a larger debate of whether Islam and constitutionalism are mutually exclusive. The thesis begins by positioning itself against Samuel Huntington and Elie Kedourie, who argues that Islam is inherently incompatible with constitutional governance. It then addresses the idea of constitutionalism as described by Western thinkers on three constitutional concepts: the rule of law, reflection of national character, and placing boundaries on government power. These are examined through the lens of a particular canonical text or thinker, Cicero, Montesquieu, and The Federalist Papers, respectively. This is followed by an examination of Muhammad's "The Constitution of Medina." Islamic corollaries to the constitutional ideas discussed earlier are then examined. Al-Farabi's On the Perfect State, ibn Khaldun's asabiyya (group feeling) in the Muqaddimah, and the redefinition of the state in the 19th century Ottoman Tanzimat reforms are discussed. Following this, the thesis looks at a moment in history where these two traditions intersected in 19th century Tunisia in the work of Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi, undertaking a detailed analysis of the introductory section of his book The Surest Path to Knowledge Concerning the Conditions of Countries.The abstract philosophical questions that motivated this inquiry suddenly have unquestioned practical implications. In recognition of this, the conclusion of the thesis summarizes the findings of this work to look at how theorists might address the pressing constitutional concerns of various states and peoples.