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Strong and independent judiciary symbolizes transparency and impartiality in the dispute resolution process. However, litigation is often time-consuming and affects the working relationship between the disputants. In the construction context, where projects typically have a short life span of three to four years, dispute resolution through litigation induces unaffordable process delays. Despite the inherent challenges associated with litigation, it is observed that disputing parties resort to litigation. This behavior, called the litigation dilemma, ostensibly appears counterintuitive to rational decision-making.

The study identifies 35 “decision to litigate” (DTL)-triggers from a review of the literature and court cases followed by expert interviews and groups them into thematic research domains using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

DTL studies in construction stands benefited through interdisciplinary research. “Presumptuous decision-making,” “construction project characteristics,” “milieu influence,” “interest in amicable resolution,” “positional focus” and “opportunism” are the six focus areas to decode the DTL in construction.

The study identifies factors that consolidate the knowledge from various fields with the substantive experience of construction professionals from across the world to help understand the dynamics behind the DTL in the context of contract-linked disputes in construction.

The findings from the domains of law, behavior, sociology and economics can help understand the above dilemma in the context of contractual disputes in construction. However, studies that explore the “decision to litigate” (DTL) contractual disputes in construction are limited, providing a vast scope for further research. The current study addresses a part of this gap.

The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.

One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.

The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.

The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.

The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.

The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.

As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.

Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

This article aims to examine recent labour struggles against mass redundancies in France. It seeks to understand the well reported incidences of direct action within the terrain of how industrial relations operate and are governed.

Primary and secondary data sources are deployed to build and understand, in a grounded way, a case study of an industrial conflict.

The weakness of the regulation of employers, when allied to a number of considerations like union presence, has led to radical, direct actions. This highlights that overall the source of stimulus for action is worker weakness vis‐à‐vis the employer and not strength.

To aid social peace in the workplace, further regulation of employer behaviour by the state is needed given the weakness of union regulation.

The article highlights that conflict takes place primarily in contexts where the institutions of the French republic are shown to be incapable of forcing employers to respect employment laws.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to explore comparatively the relationship between the employment relations contexts and trends in collective conflicts based at the workplace and conflicts handled individually in employment tribunals outside the workplace.

The paper employs an international comparative approach comparing conflict data and employment relations models in Britain, France, Italy, Portugal and Poland.

Collective disputes are at lower levels in the 2000s than in earlier periods in each of the countries studied, while accessing employment courts appears to be as or more frequent than in the past. In France and Italy, conflict appears to be more systematically legitimated in defence of citizenship rights than elsewhere. Both individual and collective conflicts are more common than in Poland and Portugal where labour regulation and employee rights appear either less effectively enforced or, as in Britain, only weakly embedded.

Unions in France and Italy appear more successful in focusing media attention on their collective conflicts, and in securing somewhat more positive state intervention than in the other countries, while at the same time supporting individuals taking cases to the courts. In Poland and Portugal, there are very high levels of individual employment complaints taken to the courts, and little collective strike action, while in Britain unions find it difficult to mobilise action at both collective and individual levels.

Unions will have to become more aware of the need to win public legitimacy for resistance if they are to continue to be able to defend workers' interests both collectively and individually.

The paper considers whether different national institutional frameworks are presenting similar shifts from collective‐based to individual‐based resistance in workplace disputes.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning of the French Law No 2017-399 relating to the duty of vigilance of parent companies and ordering companies, a law defended by labor unions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as an answer to the ineffectiveness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) mechanisms of multi-national corporation.

The authors try to determine to what extent the new mechanisms brought by this law could improve or not the failure of existing CSR mechanisms.

The authors find out that internal weaknesses of the law, which is based on voluntary CSR instruments and without penalties, internal mechanisms of the French judicial system or external economic factors, might considerably limit the effectiveness of the law.

Even if for the first time, French judges might be asked to evaluate the reasonableness of the CSR practices of firms, one of the paradoxical effects of this law might be to institutionalize soft law mechanisms such as CSR certification or reporting, the proponents of this law precisely wanted to get rid of at the origin.