In this article, the authors assert that the United Nations Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) can contribute to tackling gaps in statutory legislation and defective business conduct that have been associated with unsustainable trade in Global Supply Chains (GSCs). The authors provide evidence that the CISG contains rules enabling a general legal framework for establishing uniform sustainable standards for goods concerning suppliers, sellers and buyers located in different countries. For instance, the CISG provisions on contract formation ease the incorporation of joint codes of conduct for sustainable trade in GSCs. In addition, the contracting parties’ circumstances and current trade usages are now more relevant to determine what constitutes conformity of the goods under the contract and the default warranties in Article 35 CISG. On the level of remedies, the authors show that best-efforts provisions, possibly included in a code of conduct or inferred from standards applicable to the goods, may redefine the notion of impediment in Article 79 CISG, which could lead to exoneration of liability for the seller. They also demonstrate why fundamental breach and the calculation of damages are at the centre of the discussion regarding the remedies for breach of an obligation to deliver sustainable goods.

In response to the complex and potentially devastating threat posed by COVID-19, parliaments around the world have transferred unprecedented powers to executive governments and their agencies (Edgar, ‘Law-making in a Crisis’, 2020), often with the full support of the communities they represent. These laws were passed within days, sometimes hours, with limited safeguards and a heavy reliance on sunsetting provisions, some of which are dependent on the pandemic being officially called to an end. While parliaments themselves have suspended or reduced sitting days (Twomey, ‘A Virtual Australian Parliament is Possible’, 2020), parliamentary committees have emerged as the forum of choice when it comes to providing some form of parliamentary oversight of executive action.
This article aims to evaluate the capacity of parliamentary committees established within the Australian, New Zealand (NZ) and United Kingdom (UK) parliaments to effectively scrutinize and review governments’ responses to COVID-19. It does this by comparing the legal framework underpinning the relevant committees in each jurisdiction and examining the work of these committees with a view to offering some preliminary views as to their impact on the shape of the laws made in response to COVID-19 in those jurisdictions. The article concludes by offering some preliminary observations about the scrutiny capacity of the parliamentary committee systems in Australia, NZ and the UK in the context of emergency lawmaking and flags areas for further research, evaluation and reform.

This article provides a critical analysis of the compensation awarded for victims of disasters. First, general guiding principles of compensation are discussed. Next, various ways of government provided victim compensation, both during the disaster and ex post are critically reviewed. Then the article focuses on ex ante insurance mechanisms for victim compensation, arguing that insurance can play a role in disaster risk reduction. Finally, the article explains how the government can cooperate with insurers in a public-private partnership for victim compensation, thus facilitating the availability of disaster insurance.

Parties enter into contracts for obtaining specific contractual benefits, and, as a result, they engage in risk allocation hoping that each will keep to its promise. These expectations are sometimes shattered by a breach by one of the parties. The contract at times provides remedies for breach of contract. However, in most cases, the parties’ contract leaves the regulation of the breach to the governing law of the contract. The efficiency of a remedial rule can be judged from the balance that it has put in place in ensuring the risks involved in international transactions are not skewed against the breaching party just because it is in breach. This article thus makes a comparative study between the United Nations Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods (CISG), UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) Principles of International Commercial Contracts (the PICC) and Sales Act (Act No. 4 of 1955) of The Gambia (GSGA) on the right of a creditor to terminate a contract to elucidate the similarities and the differences among the three regimes and to determine which of the regimes provides a suitable contract law model for the international sales of goods. The article reviews and analyses the legal instruments, case law and academic writings under the regimes and concludes that the CISG provides the most suitable contract law model for the international sale of goods.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders across the globe scrambled to adopt emergency legislation. Amongst other things, these measures gave significant powers to governments in order to curb the spreading of a virus, which has shown itself to be both indiscriminate and deadly. Nevertheless, exceptional measures, however necessary in the short term, can have adverse consequences both on the enjoyment of human rights specifically and democracy more generally. Not only are liberties severely restricted and normal processes of democratic deliberation and accountability constrained but the duration of exceptional powers is also often unclear. One potentially ameliorating measure is the use of sunset clauses: dispositions that determine the expiry of a law or regulation within a predetermined period unless a review determines that there are reasons for extension. The article argues that without effective review processes, far from safeguarding rights and limiting state power, sunset clauses can be utilized to facilitate the transferring of emergency powers whilst failing to guarantee the very problems of normalized emergency they are included to prevent. Thus, sunset clauses and the review processes that attach to them should be approached with caution.

This research study is an attempt to test the comparative criteria developed by Stefanou in his work where he discusses the characteristics that defines the drafting process in the two most dominant legal systems, common and civil law. It examines the legislative drafting process in common law countries with the aim to establish if the comparative criteria identify with the process that defines the drafting of legislation in those jurisdictions. Two common law jurisdictions were selected and an in-depth comparative analysis of steps undertaken in their drafting process was done. The scope of the study is only confined to the drafting process in the common law system and the criteria that is tested are those which define the drafting process in the common law jurisdictions only.

This article discusses using constitutional reform to reduce ethnic conflict in Guyana. I start by exploring the determinants of ethnic conflict. I next examine Guyana’s ethnopolitical history to determine what factors led to political alignment on ethnic lines and then evaluate the effect of the existing political institutions on ethnic conflict. I close with a discussion on constitutional reform in which I consider a mix of consociationalist, integrative, and power-constraining mechanisms that may be effective in reducing ethnic conflict in Guyana’s ethnopolitical circumstances.