Law thesis and dissertation collection
Presented here is a selection of theses and dissertations from the School of Law. Please note that this is not a complete record of all degrees awarded by the School.
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Loquacious legislature: are statutes ‘always speaking’?
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis concerns: (a) how we should understand legislative words and phrases if they have changed in meaning since they were enacted; and (b) how the UK courts have actually done so. The key question is: should we give ... -
Taxonomy of non-pecuniary losses in English tort law: normative losses and Consequential losses as organising concepts
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)Even though non-pecuniary losses are of great practical importance and arguably they are familiar to any actor in the legal system, the field is hugely understudied and there is a considerable lack of theorisation in several ... -
Words matter: human rights language in the United Nations' counter-terrorism law, policy and proceedings
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-07-31)This thesis critically analyses the mobilisation of the language of human rights by and within three UN principal organs involved in counter-terrorism: The General Assembly, the Security Council and the office of the ... -
Expert paediatric evidence in alleged infant harm: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-10-09)The aim of this thesis is to investigate and further understanding of the interaction between paediatricians providing expert opinion evidence in cases of alleged child abuse and the various fact-findings tribunals who ... -
Fishing power Europe: examining the EU's normativity in its external fisheries action
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-22)The EU is a major fishing power, portraying itself as a normative actor and as a champion of sustainable fishing. In this thesis, ‘normative power’ denotes a powerful actor that acts in a principled way. This thesis ... -
Legislative scrutiny on constitutional grounds in the United Kingdom Parliament: the contribution of constitutional committees to (political?) responsibility for the constitution
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)This thesis focuses on institutional arrangements designed to strengthen the ability of political institutions to assess the constitutional implications of legislation in the law-making process. It sheds light in the ... -
Augmenting employee protection during hostile takeovers of private sector companies in China: lessons from the German co-determination model
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)China is currently undergoing a wave of corporate takeovers and accordingly, hostile takeovers are projected to rise. The term “corporate takeover” is a reference to the “means of one company acquiring control over another,” ... -
Female directors on board: the roadmap for India
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)“One woman” to “one independent woman” director … where next? This statement explains the core of this thesis, which aims to craft a future roadmap for India in relation to boardroom gender diversity. In line with global ... -
Critical infrastructure: a social worlds study of values, design and resistance in Tor and the Tor community
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)While cybercrime research has become well-established within criminology, there is very little criminological research which treats the infrastructures and platforms of the Internet as subjects of criminological enquiry. ... -
Private property, freedom and power
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)This thesis aims to shed light on a central aspect of private property: the limits that it imposes on the freedom of non-owners and its potential implications. To the extent that private property does not depend on the ... -
Penal transformations: the case of the Chilean juvenile justice system
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)This thesis explores the major transformation of the Chilean juvenile justice system that was implemented in 2007. However, this is a much longer process that involves analysing the inter-relationship between polity building, ... -
Criminal procedures in early Seventeenth-Century Scotland: a medieval legacy? Pleading and proving in the case of Isobel Young, prosecuted for witchcraft (1629)
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)This thesis explores, through a fresh reading of the court proceedings of a witchcraft case, how the procedures that were used to deal with that crime in Scotland may affect our views on Scots criminal law in the early ... -
Economising international tax dispute resolution: transaction-cost perspective
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)The unprecedented extent of globalisation, the growth of international business and global value chains, and businesses’ greater use of tax optimisation schemes have all spurred the proliferation of international ... -
1982 Law of the Sea Convention and the regulation of offshore renewable energy activities within national jurisdiction
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-30)Offshore renewable energy has been developed as an important source of clean energy for achieving sustainable development and tackling climate change. Whilst the generation of energy from the water, current and wind ... -
Exploring the relationship between capital, inequality, and antisocial behaviour in Mexican schools
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-02-05)Various studies have linked poverty and inequality with problems in schools, including antisocial behaviour (ASB). However, many of these studies have two important limitations that have shaped our view about these ... -
Complementarity between the Nagoya Protocol and human rights: legal implications of the principle of mutual supportiveness with respect to indigenous peoples and local communities
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-01)This is a research project on the potential complementarity between the Nagoya Protocol and the international human rights law with respect to Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs). The Nagoya Protocol is a ... -
Effective and flexible emissions trading markets: international emission trading by networking carbon markets on distributed ledger technology architecture – regulatory and institutional frameworks
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-06-25)Notwithstanding the apparent lack of success of international emission trading under the Kyoto Protocol, numerous jurisdictions are implementing mitigation mechanisms that put a price on carbon, whether by taxing activities ... -
Justice and society in Strathspey: the Regality Court of Grant, c. 1690-1748
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-01-22)Prior to the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in 1748 much of Scotland’s judicial business was handled by courts of barony and regality. Historians have debated the importance of these franchise courts in the everyday ... -
What does Privacy by Design mean for Digital Rights Management?
(The University of Edinburgh, 2015-06)This thesis sets out the privacy by design provisions in the draft GDPR, before considering the primary DRM approaches and the ways in which they can be abused to undermine user privacy. It describes the infamous Sony BMG ... -
Data portability as a new means of data protection? Examining the right to data portability in the EU General Data Protection Regulation
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-23)On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect across the European Union. This new Regulation has a number of innovations, notably including a new right for the data subject to port ...
