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This book describes the encounter between the common law legal system and the tribal peoples of North America and Australasia. It is a history of the role of anglophone law in managing relations between the British settlers and indigenous peoples. That history runs from the plantation of Ireland and settlement of the New World to the end of the 20th century. The book begins by looking at the nature of British imperialism and the position of non-Christian peoples at large in the 17th and 18th centuries. It then focuses on North America and Australasia from their early national periods in the 19th century to the modern era. The historical basis of relations is described through the key, enduring, but constantly shifting questions of sovereignty, status and, more latterly, self-determination. Throughout the history of engagement with common law legalism, questions surrounding the settler-state's recognition — or otherwise — of the integrity of the tribe have recurred. These issues were addressed in many and varied imperial and colonial contexts, but all jurisdictions have shared remarkable historical parallels which have been accentuated by their common legal heritage. The same questioning continues today in the renewed and controversial claims of the tribal societies to a distinct constitutional position and associated rights of self-determination. The author examines the political resurgence of aboriginal peoples in the last quarter of the 20th century. A period of ‘rights-recognition’ was transformed into a second-generation jurisprudence of rights-management and rights-integration. From the 1990s onwards, aboriginal affairs have been driven by an increasingly rampant legalism.

Aboriginal title was one of the most remarkable and controversial legal developments in the common law world of the late-twentieth century. The common law doctrine gave sudden substance to the tribes' claims to justiciable property rights over their traditional lands, catapulting these up the national agenda and jolting them out of a seemingly embedded culture of governmental inattention. In a series of breakthrough cases national courts adopted the argument developed first in western Canada, and then New Zealand and Australia by a handful of influential scholars. Almost overnight these cases changed the political leverage of indigenous peoples. By the beginning of the millennium the doctrine had spread to Malaysia, Belize, and southern Africa, and had a profound impact upon the rapid development of international law of indigenous peoples' rights. This book is a history of this doctrine and the explosion of intellectual activity arising from this inrush of legalism into the tribes' relations with the Anglo settler state. The author of this book was one of the key scholars involved from the doctrine's appearance in the early 1980s as an exhortation to the courts, and a figure who has both witnessed and contributed to its acceptance and subsequent pattern of development. The book looks critically at the early conceptualisation of the doctrine, its doctrinal elaboration and evisceration in Canada and Australia — the busiest jurisdictions — through a proprietary paradigm located primarily (and constrictively) inside adjudicative processes. This book also considers the issues of inter-disciplinary thought and practice (for anthropologists and historians especially) arising from national legal systems' recognition of aboriginal land rights, including the emergent and associated themes of self-determination that surfaced more overtly during the 1990s and after. The doctrine made modern legal history, and it is still making it.

The criminal courts have a power to stop a prosecution from proceeding altogether where it would be inappropriate for it to continue. This power to stay proceedings which constitute an abuse of the process of the court has assumed great practical significance and is potentially applicable in many situations. There is at least one consideration of the abuse of process doctrine in virtually every major criminal trial today. This fully updated second edition of Abuse of Process and Judicial Stays of Criminal Proceedings blends doctrinal discussion with a thorough consideration of the underlying theory to provide a searching analysis of the theory and practice of abuse of process in England and Wales, with comparative examinations of many other jurisdictions including the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This edition focuses in particular upon the profound impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on the judicial discretion to stay criminal proceedings. It explores substantial amounts of important recent case law, taking into account ECHR jurisprudence and discussions in English courts of the interplay between Article 6 ECHR and abuse of process.

The right of access to justice, at national and international levels, is a fundamental cornerstone of the protection of human rights. It conforms a true right to the Law. Such right, lato sensu, amounts to the right to the realization of justice. In such understanding, it comprises not only the formal access to a tribunal or judge, but also respect for the guarantees of due process of law, the right to a fair trial, and to reparations (whenever they are due), and the faithful execution of judgments. The right to an effective domestic remedy is a basic pillar of the rule of law in a democratic society. In its turn, the right of international individual petition, and the safeguard of the integrity of international jurisdiction, are the basic foundations of the emancipation of the individual vis-à-vis his own State.This is a domain that has undergone a remarkable development in recent years. The very notion of “victim” has been the subject of a considerable international case-law. The direct access of victims to international justice has been taking place in the most diverse circumstances, including situations of great adversity, or even defencelessness, of the complainants (e.g., abandoned or “street children”, undocumented migrants, members of peace communities in situations of armed conflict, internally displaced persons, individuals in infra-human conditions of detention, surviving victims of massacres). It is submitted that the right of access to justice belongs today to the domain of jus cogens. Without it, there is no legal system at all. The protection of the human person in the most adverse circumstances has evolved amongst considerations of international ordre public. Such recent evolution has been contributing to the gradual expansion of the material content of jus cogens.

India’s post-TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) patent law reforms, which incorporates a remarkable array of flexibilities is seen as a counter-harmonization measure in direct opposition to the dominant model of patent law pioneered by the United States. India’s response, which represents an alternative model of confirming to the TRIPS Agreement, has seen stiff resistance in the form of counter-provisions in Free Trade Agreements entered by the US and other countries. Historically, patent systems based on neo-liberalism, like the American model, favour individual pursuits whereas patent systems based on social democracy, like the Indian model, focus on community goals. This distinction manifests in the manner in which the role of the public is defined in the patent system. India’s model is characterized by the emphasis on the public elements in three significant ways. First, in redefining pre-grant opposition by allowing public participation in questioning the ex ante validity of patents. Second, in protecting the public domain by heightening the standard of patentability and requiring the patent applicant to demonstrate technical advance and greater effectiveness of the invention. Third, in providing for compulsory licensing when the public interest is affected by a patent that is not worked locally. The influence of the India’s model has come from mimicry by other countries in following the Indian example. Countries like Argentina, Philippines, Brazil, China, and South Africa have either emulated or strongly favour following India’s path. Such state practices might occasion the reimagination of the TRIPS Agreement as the Access Regime.

In international law, as in any other legal system, respect and protection of human rights can be guaranteed only by the availability of effective judicial remedies. When a right is violated or damage is caused, access to justice is of fundamental importance for the injured individual and it is an essential component of the rule of law. Yet, access to justice as a human right remains problematic in international law. First, because individual access to international justice remains exceptional and based on specific treaty arrangements, rather than on general principles of international law; second, because even when such a right is guaranteed as a matter of treaty obligation, other norms or doctrines of international law may effectively impede its exercise, as in the case of sovereign immunity or non-reviewability of UN Security Council measures directly affecting individuals. Further, even access to domestic legal remedies is suffering because of the constraints, put by security threats such as terrorism, on the full protection of freedom and human rights. This collection of chapters offers seven distinct perspectives on the present status of access to justice: its development in customary international law, the stress put on it in times of emergency, its problematic exercise in the case of violations of the law of war, its application to torture victims, its development in the case law of the UN Human Rights Committee and of the European Court of Human Rights, its application to the emerging field of environmental justice, and finally access to justice as part of fundamental rights in European law.

The issue of how patents impact medicine has increased in significance within the last decade. The conclusion of a landmark international agreement (TRIPS) has increased attention on how patents impact access to medicine, but this new focus has not always led to productive results. Discussions concerning the impact of access to medicine often degenerate into finger-pointing. Patent owning companies are often vilified as greedy corporations that place profits above people while those who advocate greater access to drugs are accused of stealing private property. These accusations seem to be based on deeply held views about the role of patents. On the one hand, patents are seen as a tool to promote innovation, and as such, they can (and should) be modified. On the other hand, patents are viewed as an important property right that should seldom be subject to exceptions, especially considering its limited term. This book explains how these competing views have led to confusion and obfuscation of the law. This book aims to clarify widely prevalent misconceptions as reflected both in reports from the popular press and by some academics in the field of intellectual property. The book has two goals: to provide an explanation of the current international infrastructure that requires most nations to provide patent and related rights regarding drugs, and to explain how competing patent perspectives play a thus far unacknowledged role in promoting distortion and confusion.

Copyright law has become the subject of general concerns that reach beyond the limited circles of specialists and prototypical rights-holders. The role, scope, and effect of copyright mechanisms involve genuinely complex questions. Digitization trends and the legal changes that followed drew those complex matters to the center of an ongoing public debate. This book explores theoretical, normative, and practical aspects of premising copyright on the principle of access to works. The impetus to this approach has been the emergence of technology that many consider a threat to the intended operation, and perhaps even to the very integrity, of copyright protection in the digital setting: It is the ability to control digital works already at the stage of accessing them by means of technological protection measures. The pervasive shift toward the use of digital technology for the creation, dissemination, exploitation, and consumption of copyrighted material warrants a shift also in the way we perceive the structure of copyright rules. Premising the copyright order on the concept of digital access first calls for explaining the basic components of proprietary access control over information in the abstract. The book then surveys recent developments in positive law, while showing how the theoretical access-right construct could explain the logic behind them. Finally, the book critically analyzes existing approaches to curbing the resulting problems of imbalance and overprotection, which are said to disadvantage users. In conclusion, the book advocates for a structural overhaul of our current regulative apparatus. The proposed reform involves a series of changes in the way we define copyright entitlements, and in the way in which those entitlements may interrelate within a single, coherent scheme.

Many government bodies relate to each other through contracts: government departments and agencies; government departments and the Treasury; National Health Service (NHS) purchasers and NHS Trusts. These ‘internal contracts’ are not, in general, regulated or enforced by the law. This book explores the practical problems encountered by the parties to internal contracts, drawing on evidence from an empirical case study of NHS contracts. It uncovers difficulties in defining the parties' roles; in maintaining good working relationships; and in securing compliance with contractual terms. It then examines the possibility of solving these problems through law. Some commentators, particularly public lawyers, have condemned the law's failure to keep pace with the rise of ‘government by contract’, but few have made specific proposals for reform. The book develops an original public law analysis of internal contracts, interpreting them as mechanisms of accountability from service providers to purchasers. It proposes norms which would help the parties to use their contracts as fair and effective mechanisms of accountability. It also suggests reforms to the institutional framework for internal contracts.

Accountability is regarded as a central feature of modern constitutionalism. At a general level, this prominence is perhaps unsurprising, given the long history of the idea. However, in many constitutional democracies, including the UK and the USA, it has acquired a particular resonance in contemporary circumstances with the declining power of social deference, the expanding reach of populist accountability mechanisms, and the increasing willingness of citizens to find mechanisms for challenging official decision-making. These chapters seek to explore how ideas of and mechanisms associated with accountability play a part in the contemporary constitution. While the majority of chapters concentrate on the United Kingdom, others provide comparative discussion with particular reference to the United States and aspects of European Union law. The main focus of the volume is the contemporary UK constitution. Chapters are included which analyse the historical context (including the role of Dicey), common law constitutionalism, the constitutional role of Parliament, the constitutional role of the courts, judicial accountability, human rights protection under the constitution and the contribution of non-judicial accountability mechanisms. Further chapters explore the public service principle, the impact of new public management on public service delivery, and the relationship between accountability and regulation. Finally accountability is discussed in the light of constitutional reform including the challenges posed by the ‘multi-layered’ government at the supra national level of EU membership and sub-national national levels of devolution and local government.