This article was the Kirby lecture presented in March 2009 at the Southern Cross University in Sydney, Australia. Adrien Wing's keynote speech was in support of Australian retired Justice Michael Kirby's legacy that national courts can and should gain strength from international law. The author...

The worldwide rise of the Value-Added Tax (VAT) over the last half-century is emblematic of the paradox in modern tax systems: their remarkable similarity in the face of divergent political, cultural and social systems. However efforts to introduce VAT-style taxes have frequently been...

This working paper gives a broad-sweep consideration to the future of VAT in a digital economy, focussing on four broad, interrelated questions: does anything need to be done, and if yes, who should do it, what should be done, and how should it be done? Noting the historical development of the...

The global financial crisis of 2007-8 gave definitive light to some worrying cracks that for years have plagued the global economy. In the UK, the remedy to the planetary collapse took the form of the stewardship code, issued in 2010 by the Financial Reporting Council. This initiative, as the...

The 21st century has ushered in an era of philanthropic globalization marked by a significant rise in international charitable giving. At the same time, cross-border philanthropy has raised legitimate fiscal and regulatory concerns for government. To understand how donor countries have responded...

The paper explores the origins of the Value Added Tax (VAT) and its rapid global rise from relative obscurity in the mid-twentieth century to its near worldwide adoption today. The paper highlights general trends in VAT design and provides a critical overview of the explanations provided for the...

Cancer is a leading global cause of death and disability responsible for approximately 7.6 million deaths each year. Around one third of cancers are attributable to a small number of preventable risk factors – including smoking and the harmful consumption of alcohol – for which effective...

While most terrorism remains localised, aspects of some transnational terrorism and counter-terrorism have been simultaneously enabled and constrained by globalisation. This paper addresses both the material, causative and legal dynamics of globalisation in relation to terrorism and...

Law and policymaking form a central theme of the global governance debate. In these times of an emerging global creative economy the debate is becoming increasingly complex as global governance is faced with serious challenges of a political, economic, cultural, environmental, social,...

From the 1960s onwards, the global community became much more aware of the phenomena of air and water pollution and land contamination. Moreover, over the last three decades, the issues of climate change, loss of biodiversity, desertification, drought, and land degradation have become much more...