This thesis considers the phenomenon of soft law. The very name ‘soft law’ sounds like an oxymoron: if law is soft, is it not therefore prevented from being law? There

is some force to that objection, but only in a purely formalist sense. More practically, lawyers have understood for at least seventy years that public authorities [...]

Patients who have undergone treatment that has included the surgical implantation of a prosthetic device can become dissatisfied for many reasons. One cause for dissatisfaction

is any adverse event where there is a demonstrable causal nexus with the failure of a device that is defective or at risk of being so. [...]

This thesis makes two principal contributions. First, it shows how the specificities of geography shape legal conceptions of conservation. It demonstrates that the ways that

law conceives of conservation are contingent on the ways that geography operates on the motivations and actions of the actors who impel and make that law. [...]

Africa’s expanded refugee definition – Article I(2) of the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (1969 African Refugee Convention,

or 1969 Convention) – provides the legal basis of protection for a significant number of the world’s refugees, a gateway to a host of rights aimed at protecting [...]

Climate change poses a serious threat to the long-term structural integrity, if not existence, of the Australian constitutional system. This means that Australian government

action worsening climate change poses a threat to this constitutional system. When government action threatens this system, even in a partial or incremental manner, [...]

This thesis seeks to contribute to the literature on treaty harmonisation and integration through the application of an interdisciplinary approach to treaty interpretation.

Scott’s political theory of treaty interpretation, or Cognitive Structures of Cooperation (CSC) theory, is applied to the nuclear arms control regime founded on [...]

As a mode of intervention in which the UN assumed direct authority over disrupted states, transitional administrations represent unique examples of ambitious state-building

projects. This thesis investigates the apparent failure of transitional administrations to establish the rule of law in Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor. [...]

This thesis examines the Treason Felony Act 1848 and the issues it raised when it comes to regulating radical dissent. A detailed analysis of the Hansard debates, and State

Trials in Ireland, reveals a story that transcends the accepted narrative of the Irish question. [...]

The legitimacy of administrative proceduralisation, which describes the process of adoption of procedural tools of an administrative character in global governance, is contested

in the literature. This thesis addresses this debate by proposing a new purposive legitimacy framework, which facilitates evaluation of the extent to which administrative [...]

Section 50 of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 (Cth) confers a wide power on the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) to bring

civil action in the name of the company or a class action for shareholders or investors for the recovery of damages for corporate misconduct. [...]