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Since 2015, China has made efforts to reform its intellectual property rights (IPR) system to better protect and stimulate innovation. These reforms are a result of the demand for more stringent intellectual property (IP) protection from China’s domestic, innovative industries and a measure to ease the pressure exerted by its foreign trading partners, particularly against the background of the US-China trade dispute that started at the beginning of 2018. This paper summarizes these reforms and their implications.

This paper combines a variety of sources, including academic articles, government websites, news reports, industry surveys and expert opinions, to offer insights in China’s IPR system and its recent reforms.

This paper summarizes and discusses (1) the state’s law amendments, including the 2015 amendment of the “Law on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements”, the second amendment of the “Anti-Unfair Competition Law” with regard to trade secret protection, the fourth amendment of the “Patent Law”, and the legislations and regulations addressing the criticisms of the US administration over China’s so-called “forced” technology transfer policies; (2) the establishment of the specialized IP courts and tribunals since 2014; (3) the restructuring of the State IP Office; and (4) the issuing of an “Outline for Building an IPR Powerhouse (2021–2035)”.

This paper highlights China’s efforts to make its IPR system stronger and more just. It also discusses international observers’ reactions and pinpoints specific areas for further improvement.

The purpose of this study is to describe peer support work in a men’s mental health unit from a lived experience and service user’s perspective. The intertwining of process (a lived experience perspective) and subject (the therapeutic value of peer support) leads to greater knowledge and insight into peer support for people with mental health problems.

This service user narrative draws on the extracts from a reflective journal of interactions and conversations with people with mental health problems as well as feedback from service users and staff about the value of peer support. These methods allow a first-person, service user’s, reflective and narrative account of peer support work.

Peer support work, particularly hearing voices sessions, are found to be highly therapeutic and worthwhile. They promote insight and create feelings of safety and hope in what can sometimes be a frightening and hostile ward environment. Peer support provides emotional and practical support. Sharing stories and experiences of mental illness with people leads to trust, feelings of being valued, heard and accepted as well as better experiences of care and being seen as a person first. Due to their shared experiences, peer support workers are able to befriend people with mental health problems on the ward. Peer support work bridges the gap and vacuum of care between people with mental health problems and staff. It compensates for understaffing to provide more holistic and person-centred care and support.

Lived experience/ service user perspectives and narratives on peer support are rare, particularly in a hospital setting. This article provides a rich, perhaps overlooked and hidden narrative on the nature of peer support work. People with mental health problems, like Ben, are often excluded from society, health and social care, education, employment and research. This narrative opens up a pathway to understanding peer support from a service user perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the supervening loss of inter-organisational trust in long-term commercial contracts. The underlying research question is whether contract law – the legal institution regulating economic exchanges – should intervene and enable a party to a long-term commercial contract to extricate itself from a situation where a relationship of trust has broken down irretrievably.

This paper uses doctrinal methodology and theoretical conceptualisation to answer the underlying research question. The legal instrument chosen for analysis purposes is the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. This paper also draws on extant literature on inter-organisational trust (including conceptual and empirical studies) to support the arguments and propositions. Furthermore, this study proceeds to assess the substantive justifiability of the proposed remedial measure using four normative values: legal certainty and predictability, protection of the performance interest, economic efficiency and the preservation of the relation.

The central argument put forward in this paper is the reformulation of draft Article 6.3.1 proposed by the UNIDROIT Working Group on Long-Term Contracts, which confers a novel right to terminate for a compelling reason. This paper presents a multidimensional model of inter-organisational trust that would serve as the conceptual framework for the proposed reformulation of the provision and establishes a coherent juridical basis for the legal solution that would accord with the Principles of International Commercial Contracts’ general remedial scheme. As for the normative assessment, this paper demonstrates that the proposed remedial measure would significantly promote efficient outcomes and positively serve the norms of legal certainty, protection of the performance interest and the preservation of the relation.

This paper addresses the lacuna in current legal scholarship in relation to the adverse socio-economic effects following trust violation and deterioration in inter-organisational relationships. Additionally, the propositions and findings should contribute to the workings of the UNIDROIT in adopting new rules and principles that would serve the special requirements of cross-border trade.

States have intervened with legislation to improve cashflow within construction project supply chains. The operation of the UK’s Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 leads to payment obligations stated either as a contract administrator’s certificate (or equivalent) or an adjudicator’s decision. The purpose of the intervention would be defeated unless there are speedy ways of transforming these pieces of paper into real money. The combination of the legislation, contractual provisions and insolvency law has produced a minefield of complexity concerning enforcement of payment obligations stated in these documents. Unfortunately, the knowledge and understanding required to navigate these complexities have been sorely lacking. The purpose of this paper is to plug this gap.

Legal research methods and case study approaches, using relevant court decisions as data, were adopted.

The enforcement method advised by the court is the summary judgment procedure provided under the Civil Procedure Rules. An overdue payment obligation, either under the terms of a construction contract or an adjudicator’s decision, amounts to a debt that can be the subject of insolvency proceedings. Although the insolvency enforcement method has been successfully used on some occasions, using it purely as a debt collection weapon would be inappropriate and likely to be punished by the court.

The paper contributes to knowledge in two ways: (i) it maps out the factual situations in which these payment challenges arise in language accessible to the construction industry’s professions; and (ii) comparative analysis of payment enforcement methods to aid decision-making by parties to construction industry contracts. It is relevant to the other common-law jurisdictions in which similar statutory interventions have been made.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of land degradation as a category of environmental terrorism, which has been increasing along with the rise of open pit mining and oil palm plantation activities.

This study uses a doctrinal approach that aims to find the best solution to address the problem of land degradation and environmental terrorism activities in Indonesia through a comparative legal study conducted with the handling of similar cases in Malaysia, which has almost the same character as Indonesia.

This paper finds that both Indonesia and Malaysia have enacted laws and regulations to address environmental concerns. However, it turns out that relying only on law enforcement is not an optimal solution. Addressing the problem of land degradation would also require the implementation of sustainable development practices, public awareness and cooperative dialogue.

This paper provides a new approach to answer the inclusion of environmental degradation as environmental terrorism, which should also be considered a crime against humanity.

This study aims to investigate the extent of Shariah compliance in wakalah sukuk and Shariah non-compliant risk disclosure in the sukuk documents and to analyse the risk management techniques associated with the disclosed risks.

This study uses qualitative document analysis as both data collection and analysis methods. The document analysis acts as a data collection method for 23 wakalah sukuk documents selected from 32 issuances of wakalah sukuk from 2017 to 2021. These sukuk documents were selected based on their availability from relevant websites. Document analysis, both content analysis and thematic analysis, were used to analyse the data. Codes were grounded from that data through keywords search of Shariah noncompliant risk and its risk management. Besides these, interviews were also conducted with four active industry players, i.e. two legal advisors of wakalah sukuk, a wakalah sukuk trustee and a sukuk institutional issuer. These interview data were analysed based on categorical themes, on the aspects of the extent of Shariah compliance in sukuk, and the participant’s views on the risk management techniques associated with the risks or used in the sukuk documents.

Overall, the findings reveal three types of Shariah non-compliant risks disclosed in the sukuk documents and seven risk management techniques associated with them. However, the disclosure and the risk management techniques can be considered minimal in contrast to the extent of Shariah compliance in a sukuk, i.e. Shariah compliance at the pre-issuance stage, ongoing stage and post-issuance stage. On top of these, it was also found from the interviews that not all risk management techniques are workable to manage Shariah non-compliant risk in sukuk. As a result, these findings suggest rigorous reviews of the existing Shariah non-compliance risk (SNCR) disclosures and risk management techniques by the relevant parties.

Sukuk documents used in the study are limited to corporate wakalah sukuk issued in Malaysia. Out of 32 issuances from 2015 to 2021, only 23 documents are available in relevant website. Thus, Shariah non-compliant risk disclosure and its risk management techniques analysed in this study are only limited in those documents.

The findings of this study suggest rigorous reviews on the existing Shariah non-compliance disclosures and risk management techniques. Other than these, future research in relation to uncommon risk management clauses, i.e. assurance, Shariah waiver and transfer of risk, are needed.

The insights presented in the analysis are of importance to sukuk issuers and the sukuk due diligence working group in enhancing the sukuk Shariah compliance and Shariah non-compliant risks disclosure and towards sukuk investors, in capturing and assessing Shariah non-compliant risks in a sukuk and to assist them to make informed investment decisions. More importantly, this study has found few areas of future study in relation to SNCR disclosures and SNCR risk management techniques.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinise the intricate relationship between the inadequate enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the application of good governance and the persisting prevalence of coups d'état and poverty in Africa.

This paper uses a doctrinal legal research approach, synthesising existing literature while extensively analysing primary and secondary legal sources. Its primary aim is to scrutinise the intricate relationship between the inadequate enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the application of good governance and the persisting prevalence of coups d'état and poverty in Africa. The choice of case study countries Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan stems from their historical significance, regional diversity, data accessibility and potential insights into the interplay among anti-corruption enforcement, governance, poverty and coups d'état in Africa.

The enforcement of anti-corruption laws and the promotion of good governance are indispensable for democracy and economic stability; their suboptimal enforcement directly contributes to coups d'état and the worsening of poverty in African nations. It emphasises the imperative for African countries to consistently and proficiently enforce anti-corruption laws and adhere to principles of good governance, effectively and responsibly, to mitigate coups d'état and alleviate poverty in the region.

This study designs a model strategy for combating coups d'état and corruption in Africa as contribution to knowledge in the field of study.

Globally, hepatitis C treatment uptake is lower among people who are homeless or unstably housed compared to those who are housed. Understanding and addressing this is essential to ensure no one is left behind in hepatitis C elimination efforts. This study aims to explore peoples’ experiences of unstable housing and health care, and how these experiences influenced engagement in hepatitis C treatment.

Purposive sampling was used to recruit people with lived experience of injection drug use, hepatitis C and unstable housing in Melbourne, Australia. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted and a case study approach with interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify personal experiential themes and group experiential themes.

Four people were interviewed. The precarious nature of housing for women who inject drugs was a group experiential theme, however, this did not appear to be a direct barrier to hepatitis C treatment. Rather, competing priorities, including caregiving, were personal experiential themes and these created barriers to treatment. Another group experiential theme was “right place, right time, right people” with these three elements required to facilitate hepatitis C treatment.

There is limited research providing in-depth insight into how personal experiences with unstable housing and health care shape engagement with hepatitis C treatment. The analyses indicate there is a need to move beyond a “one size fits-all” approach to hepatitis C care. Instead, care should be tailored to the needs of individuals and their personal circumstances and regularly facilitated. This includes giving greater attention to gender in intervention design and evaluation, and research more broadly.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which these reforms address the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s previous investment framework. Long viewed as a hostile environment in which to do business, the Saudi Government has enacted a broad sweep of measures aimed at restoring investor confidence in central aspects of the country’s evolving private law framework.

This paper offers a timely assessment of the raft of foreign investment reforms, both legislative and regulatory, that have been introduced in Saudi Arabia over the last decade.

The paper will proceed by outlining the perceived failings of the old investment regime before going on to reforms.

It will consider the remaining obstacles to the flow of foreign investment in Saudi Arabia in the context of the dual forces that have historically defined the Kingdom’s ambivalent investment law regime.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between political instability and the performance of Islamic banks in emerging countries.

For a data sample of 93 Islamic banks in 20 emerging countries during the period from 2011 to 2016, the authors identify indicators that matter most for the activities of Islamic banks.

The study finds that a stable government and law and order are positively correlated with the health of Islamic financial institutions. On the other hand, corruption and military involvement in politics can create an unstable environment for businesses, leading to uncertainty and risk. The study also reveals that Islamic banks operating in regions or communities with lower risk of socio-economic conditions tend to exhibit higher levels of profitability.

Overall, the study provides valuable insights into the impact of political instability on Islamic banks in emerging countries.