As a result of the overvvhelming weight of scientific evidence, it is now reasonable to maintain that peoples of the globe, especially those living in developing countries, are facing high risks posed by anthropogenic climate change. A recent report commissioned by the World Bank provides a forecast of the frightening impacts of 2°C warming on three tropical regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. The report highlights the key findings that have potentially devastating implications for development, such as unprecedented and more frequent heat extremes covering greater land areas both globally and in the three regions examined. For example, heat extremes in South East Asia are projected to increase substantially in the near term, and will have significant adverse effects on humans and ecosystems with as little as 2°C rise in temperature.

On 2 December 2008, the Constitutional Court of Thailand passed a unanimous verdict dissolving the ruling People Power Party (PPP), and banning Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, from politics for five years because PPP executives had been convicted of electoral fraud in the general elections in December 2007. In two separate verdicts on the same day, the Constitutional Court also dissolved two parties in his coalition Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya on the similar grounds. As a result of the Court's rulings, anti-government protesters, led by the so-called 'People's Alliance for Democracy' (PAD) or the 'Yellow Shirts', ended the week-long siege of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports. While the Constitutional Court's verdicts were greeted by the PAD and its supporters as a legitimate tool to heal Thailand's fractured democracy, others questioned whether a proper legal procedure was fully followed by the Court in arriving at such radical verdicts. The paper will first provide a review of the constitutional history of Thailand. It will then look at the powers and functions of the Constitutional courts under the former provisions of the 1997 Constitution in comparison with the new provisions of the current 2007 Constitution. In the next section, it will analyse the recent controversial cases decided by the Constitutional Court of Thailand, especially those concerning electoral fraud and corruption. Finally, the paper will critically assess the role of the Constitutional Court in protecting the Rule of Law and democracy in Thailand.

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.