Some eight decades ago on 24 June 1932, Thailand embarked on a journey towards democratic transformation when the People's Party, an elite group of civil servants, princes, army officers and young intellectuals, who were well educated in Europe and fully infused with the concept of Western democracy, staged a bloodless coup d'etat, demanding a change of government from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Determined to avoid any bloodshed, His Majesty King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) agreed to abolish absolute monarchy and the transfer of power to the constitution-based system of government by signing a temporary constitution on 27 June 1932. This constitution marked the arrival of Thailand's modern political constitutionalism - the idea that government can and should be legally limited in its powers. Since then, Thailand has been subject to 18 military coups followed by the promulgation of new and/or revised 18 constitutions and numerous changes of government. The turbulent history of Thailand's constitutionalism suggests that there is a need for major constitutional reform - one where the Constitution is reviewed to ensure adherence to the Rule of Law and democracy.

This study examines how the African Court of Justice and Human Rights can be more effective in human rights protection in Africa. At its core, it scrutinizes the current African human rights regime, its weaknesses and strengths. The study argues that for the African Court of Justice and Human rights to be an effective institution, it must remedy the shortcomings encountered by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights as well as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights'. This thesis acknowledges that one of the main challenges for the consumers of human rights in Africa has been to find an effective forum in which the rights of the most vulnerable can be vindicated. It is argued that for the African Court of Justice and Human Rights to be an effective institution in Africa, it must position itself alongside African traditional judicial institutions and learn lessons from other well-established regional human rights institutions.

At the end of the twenty century the problem of traditional knowledge and genetic resources protection is widely discussed in national and international levels. This interesting issue has long been debated between developing and developed countries. Developing countries claimed that developed countries have misused of their traditional knowledge and genetic resources without their consent, which is considered a form of biopiracy. On the other hand, developed countries argued that such traditional knowledge and genetic resources is in the public domain, and thus it is not biopiracy. Presently, it is generally recognised, and known, that the protection of traditional knowledge and genetic resources has been debated in international forums, such as the WIPO and the WTO. In this regard several developing countries have to find the appropriate legal mechanisms to protect their own resources. The existing intellectual property rights regimes, a new form of intellectual property rights or a sui generis system, have been debated for the protection of traditional knowledge. It is widely recognised that the existing intellectual property rights regimes are not appropriate to protect all subsets of traditional knowledge, even though it can be useful for the protection of some forms of traditional knowledge. It is fact that several biopiracy cases concerning traditional medicines, such as Neem, Turmeric, Ayahuasca and Kwao Kruae, involved acquisition of intellectual property rights without compensation for the traditional knowledge holders. The cases demonstrate that the lack of protection of traditional medicine, as a subset of traditional knowledge, poses a significant problem on international and national levels. This thesis explores the protection of traditional medicine in both significant international instruments and national laws.