The objective of this study is to present a systematic, structural outline of that sector of jurisprudence known as the science of law. The purpose is to offer an analytical tool for understanding law and its historical development in any society. The approach integrates large parts of sociological jurisprudence and analytical jurisprudence. For the most part they complement one another. While analytical jurisprudence is concerned with the meaning of legal concepts and their degree of logical consistency, sociological jurisprudence is concerned with assembling facts about the contents, origins and impacts of legal norms and using social science methods to estimate cause and effect. Where they conflict, sociological jurisprudence is given precedence over analytical. For example, law is treated as an open, growing social order, not a closed one. The view here is that a social theory of law can have the rigor of theory in the social sciences. It is concerned in part with generalizing about the recorded decisions of those persons in societies who have been delegated authority to make binding, enforceable decisions to settle disputes. To the extent that these generalizations can be tested and shown to have predictive value, they meet the criterion of scientific method.

This article constructs a theoretical framework that sets out the basis for instituting a rules-based approach in BRI dispute resolution. This article is a response to the fact that there have been numerous calls for instituting a rules-based approach in BRI dispute resolution, but there has been little written in terms of laying a theoretical foundation for doing this. In such way, this article fills this gap by analysing what a rules-based approach to dispute resolution means, exploring what the BRI actually is and considering why rules are understood to be necessary in BRI dispute resolution. Although the article principally adds to the ongoing academic discussion regarding the reform of BRI dispute resolution it is also of use to practitioners and policy makers active in this field.

The term "warranty" in insurance law (more so than its counterpart in general contract law) is a critical term entailing severe consequences. Accordingly, many a sympathetic judge has often been constrained to construe a warranty to be a lesser term - in particular, a term delimiting a risk which functions a suspensive condition. The paper attempts to examine when it is possible to distinguish one from the other, to explore the consequences of the breach of such a warranty , and to determine whether there is a distinction in this regard between the marine and non-marine regimes.

In 1929 the English Court of Appeal held an English Contract to smuggle whisky into the United States contrary to the prohibition laws unenforceable. The case was unusual in that the English court took note of illegality under a foreign law. The writer argues that the reasoning behind this case requires disentangling, and that a general principle of non-enforcement of contracts which contemplate the breach of foreign laws in a way contrary to international morality should be developed from it.

The article discusses the requirement of goodwill in the law of passing-off and considers the extent to which the law entitles a foreign trader, who may not have a place of business within the jurisdiction, to restrain a local trader from using the same indicia of origin for its products or services. A brief discussion on the requirement of goodwill in other common law jurisdictions will also be made.

The right of 'communication to the public' was introduced into the Singapore Copyright Act in 2004, as part of its implementation of art. 8 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (the "WCT") 1996. The purpose of this right is clear enough: it is to allow right-holders to control, inter alia, the dissemination of their copyright works via the internet. There is a recent case in Singapore which involved an unauthorised transmission of copyright works via the internet. Yet the right-holder in this case lost in its claim for infringement of its right of 'communication to the public'. This defeat brings into focus the two essential elements of this right: namely, the two 'Whom's'. To whom is the communication made - is it to "the public"? By whom is the communication made - is it the defendant in the infringement action? This article suggests that the Singapore approach in answering these two questions is overly strict, and may be inconsistent with what the promulgators intended for the right of 'communication to the public'. This assessment is made in the light of the travaux pre'paratoires of the WCT, as well as developments in Australia and the EU.

Defamation law is complex and requires the parties to be very clear about their strategy from day one of the action, especially in relation to the 'meaning' of the allegedly defamatory words. The meaning of the words determine, amongst other things, the extent that discovery must be made and the range of evidence that can be put forward by the parties. However, there is often confusion over the meaning of the words, especially in relation to the justification and fair comment defences. As such, it is argued that in all defamation actions the court should make a compulsory ruling on meaning shortly after the close of pleadings.

This comment describes several of the most significant amendments to the Malaysian Penal Code in the past two decades. Sexual offences have featured prominently with changes made to the definition of rape and its penalty in order to afford greater protection to girls and women against sexual violence; a widening of the scope of unnatural offences; the creation of a version of the offence of marital rape; and new offences against the exploitation of persons for the purpose of prostitution. The offence of incest was also introduced into the Penal Code with resulting jurisdictional conflicts between the civil and Shariah courts, which the author contends should be resolved by the Penal Code taking precedent. Other amendments discussed in this comment are a reverse onus presumption provision for the offences of criminal misappropriation and criminal breach of trust; anti-terrorism legislation in the aftermath of 9/11; and an increased maximum penalty structure for serious offences.

Legal language claims to seek precision. It also aims for clarity. But are precision and clarity mutually exclusive aims? Is absolute precision in legal language possible, or even desirable? What makes a text "clear"? How, if at all, are precision and clarity achieved in "plain" legal language but not in its linguistic opposite, "legalese"? Excerpts from Singapore's Railways Act are examined to give the theoretical discussion more concrete form.

Assuming that the vocabulary of the so-called “legal positions” is, under certain circumstances, interchangeable with the normative vocabulary, this work reformulates the question of whether legal positions exist as the question of whether they are ontologically reducible to (dismissible and replaceable by) legal norms. Since there is no doubt that the so-called “legal positions” are part and parcel of the reality that is assumed as existent in specialized legal discourses, the question raised by this work is situated at the level of meta-legal theory. In Parts II and III two different answers to this question are reconstructed: the affirmative answer that seems to be dominant in legal theory, and the negative answer elaborated by Ross. In Part IV both answers previously reconstructed are translated into the language of reduction, where the question of whether legal positions exist is reformulated again, this time as the question of whether legal theory must consider them to exist or not. Building on the distinction between different types of reduction, the ultimate goal is to distil, refine or shape the dominant discourse of legal theory according to which legal positions must be accepted as existent.