Good Faith in International Law

As a ‘general principle’, good faith forms part of the sources of international law. Still not widely examined in relation to rights and obligations, the aim here is to demonstrate the specific characteristics of the principle. In general, international law rules such as pacta sunt servanda, abuse of rights, estoppel and acquiescence and the negotiation of disputes are grounded, to some extent, in good faith. In treaty law, good faith has various manifestations from the time prior to signature through to interpretation. These are outlined here. The article argues that good faith acts to mediate the effects of States’ rights in international law, in order to achieve acceptable results when competing interests exist. Fundamentally, good faith is a limitation of State sovereignty, albeit one that is necessary, as it protects other States and their trust and reliance in international law

Confirming Bank Liability in Letter of Credit Transactions: Whose Bank Is It Anyway?

Context. The abundance of deuterated molecules in a star-forming region is sensitive to the environment in which they are formed. Deuteration fractions, in other words the ratio of a species containing D to its hydrogenated counterpart, therefore provide a powerful tool for studying the physical and chemical evolution of a star-forming system. While local low-mass star-forming regions show very high deuteration ratios, much lower fractions are observed towards Orion and the Galactic centre. Astration of deuterium has been suggested as a possible cause for low deuteration in the Galactic centre. Aims. We derive methanol deuteration fractions at a number of locations towards the high-mass star-forming region NGC 6334I, located at a mean distance of 1.3 kpc, and discuss how these can shed light on the conditions prevailing during its formation. Methods. We use high sensitivity, high spatial and spectral resolution observations obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array to study transitions of the less abundant, optically thin, methanol-isotopologues: 13CH3OH, CH318OH, CH2DOH and CH3OD, detected towards NGC 6334I. Assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and excitation temperatures of ~120–330 K, we derive column densities for each of the species and use these to infer CH2DOH/CH3OH and CH3OD/CH3OH fractions. Results. We derive column densities in a range of (0.8–8.3) × 1017 cm−2 for 13CH3OH, (0.13–3.4) × 1017 cm−2 for CH318OH, (0.03–1.63) × 1017 cm−2 for CH2DOH and (0.15–5.5) × 1017 cm−2 for CH3OD in a ~1″ beam. Interestingly, the column densities of CH3OD are consistently higher than those of CH2DOH throughout the region by factors of 2–15. We calculate the CH2DOH to CH3OH and CH3OD to CH3OH ratios for each of the sampled locations in NGC 6334I. These values range from 0.03% to 0.34% for CH2DOH and from 0.27% to 1.07% for CH3OD if we use the 13C isotope of methanol as a standard; using the 18 O-methanol as a standard, decreases the ratios by factors of between two and three. Conclusions. All regions studied in this work show CH2DOH/CH3OH as well as CH2DOH/CH3OD values that are considerably lower than those derived towards low-mass star-forming regions and slightly lower than those derived for the high-mass star-forming regions in Orion and the Galactic centre. The low ratios indicate a grain surface temperature during formation ~30 K, for which the efficiency of the formation of deuterated species is significantly reduced. Therefore, astration of deuterium in the Galactic centre cannot be the explanation for its low deuteration ratio but rather the high temperatures characterising the region

The emergence of the concept of unjust enrichment in New Zealand, its relationship to the remedial constructive trust and the development of the status of joint ventures in equity

From the 1970s onward there have been numerous attempts to persuade the courts of New Zealand that unjust enrichment might be an acceptable basis for imposing equitable remedies. The foundation for this proposition rests upon the supposed existence of a broad principle that the imposition of a constructive trust is justified in any circumstances where it would be against equity or good conscience to allow the retention of property by one who has an ostensible legal title. So the unjust enrichment, once established, becomes the cause of action and the constructive trust follows as an equitable remedy of a proprietary nature which is available to prevent the unjust enrichment. This has important ramifications for the development of the law pertaining to restitution in this country. This paper will show that the acceptance of the remedial constructive trust is linked to the development of a law of restitution founded upon the principle of unjust enrichment. It will also be shown that, while the roots of the conceptual distinction between law and equity remain intact, in many courts the practical ramifications of that distinction are being eroded, particularly in commercial cases