The article examines the provisions of the International Arbitration Act, which introduces the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration to Singapore. It considers various issues which arise under the Act and compares its provisions with the existing Arbitration Act.

Despite the well stated differences between the "real danger" and the "reasonable apprehension" of bias tests as employed by English and Australian courts respectively in determining when a judge should be disqualified by reason of bias, the method of implementation of the latter test over the last decade poses the question whether the differences are more apparent than real. Rather, it is the recent rejection by the High Court of Australia in Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy of the "automatic disqualification" rule as set out by the House of Lords in R v Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate; Ex parte Pinochet Ugarte (No 2) which more clearly marks the differences between the jurisdictions in this area of the law.

A special legal process for dealing with small claims was established in 1984. Under this process, a Small Claims Tribunal is conferred jurisdiction to hear and determine some disputes. The dispute settlement process adopted is simple and efficient. The tribunal is not bound by the rules of evidence. It is also not bound by the strict technicalities of the law. This article examines the important issue of what cases the tribunal should be allowed to determine.

Transnational crime must be seen as a by-product of globalization. The same technological means which integrate the world's markets are used in the commission of crimes that have global effects. The need for the evolution of common rules and procedures to combat them is now coming to be recognized through the formulation of conventions and treaties containing common rules and strategies. These international standards have to be translated into domestic law, thus giving rise in the criminal law systems of states to a distinct body of crimes that are not dependent on the morality or the security of that state alone but on the concerns of other states and the global community as a whole. This would necessarily create a new limb in every criminal law system. The development of this new limb of the domestic criminal law will increasingly be dictated by events outside the state. This article is an effort at detailing the parameters of this new limb and at outlining the course of its possible future development.

This article makes the case for the applicability of the doctrine of implied amendments to the_x000D_ Constitution of Singapore. The first part of this article tracks the origins and judicial development of the doctrine of implied amendments across the common law jurisdictions of Australia, Sri Lanka and Jamaica. The second part analyses whether the doctrine of implied amendments is applicable within the constitutional paradigm of Singapore based on a plain, textualist approach towards the Singapore Constitution. It also evaluates and analyses the historical academic and judicial treatment of the doctrine in Singapore, if any. The final part explores the normative justifications for adopting the doctrine of implied amendments, namely that it upholds the 'flexible constitutionalism' that characterises Singapore's constitutional system, and best weds the legal nature of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy and sovereignty to the concept of a legal system predicated on constitutional supremacy.

This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared—exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks—and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal regime has also been undermined by the lack of a strong theory of what privacy is. There is more promise in the narrower field of data protection. Singapore, which does not recognise a right to privacy, has positioned itself as an e-commerce hub but had no law on data protection until the passage of the Personal Data Protection Act 2012. The passage of that law suggests the possibilities and limitations of an approach to data protection that eschews both the European Union's privacy-rights-based approach and the ad hoc sectoral patches_x000D_ that characterise the U.S. approach to the subject.

Below is a brief account of some of the legislation passed by Parliament and the treaties entered into during the period January-October 1990. Recent court decisions of significance during the period are also noted. A brief account of the work of the Regional Centre for Arbitration in Kuala Lumpur is also given. The report concluded with a list of some of the legal conferences/seminars held during the period, together with the paper/s presented.

How a court responds to an ouster clause or other attempts to curb its jurisdiction, which seeks to exclude or limit judicial review over a public law dispute, is a reflection of the judicial perception of its role within a specific constitutional order. Article 4 of the Singapore Constitution declares the supremacy of constitutional law over all other forms of law—whether statutory, common law or customary in origin. The courts have judicially declared various unwritten constitutional principles which are of particular relevance to the question of the scope of judicial review, particularly, the separation of powers and the rule of law.With comparative references where illuminating, this article examines the scope of judicial review in Singapore administrative law, in the face of legislative intent that it be partially truncated or wholly excluded, with a view to identifying and evaluating the factors_x000D_ that have been judicially considered relevant in ascertaining the legitimacy of an ouster clause,_x000D_ including the Article 93 judicial power clauses and the inter-play of other constitutional principles.

Public bodies are endowed with far-reaching administrative powers to formulate and implement policy. Administrative law focuses upon the extent of these powers, the way in which they are exercised and controlled, and on the relationship between public bodies and those who are affected by decision-making. With the growth of executive power, judicial review has emerged as a necessary counterweight to assure accountability in the decision-making of government authorities. Against such a background, this article evaluates the contribution which judicial review has made to combating air pollution in Hong Kong to date. It essays a variety of reasons to do with Hong Kong's colonial past as to why judicial review has, in general, been a dilute force for accountability of administrators and especially so when a decision has environmental implications.