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This article examines the role of the British jurist, Sir Ivor Jennings, in the drafting of the Malayan independence constitution. Jennings was part of a five-man constitutional commission appointed in 1956 and led by the Scottish lord of appeal, Lord Reid. Unlike other such commissions, but at the request of Malaya's chief minister, its members were selected from a range of Commonwealth countries. The article discusses the principles which shaped the final document as well as the process of drafting, and argues that, while the constitution was the collective effort of five distinguished lawyers, Jennings' contributions were significantly greater. His working papers on governance served as the basis for the commission's discussion and his influence is most discernible in the provisions relating to the distribution of legislative and financial powers between the federal government and the states and in the section on fundamental liberties. This article concludes that Jennings not only provided the intellectual leadership for the Reid Commission but was also the master draftsman of the new constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a first exploration into disaster para-diplomacy for sub-national island territories, conceptualizing the notion and its actual execution. Following a brief theoretical background, an overview of the legal parameters and actual practices is provided by means of case studies in island disaster para-diplomacy drawn from the Commonwealth. De facto instances of island disaster para-diplomacy occur, but opportunities for using it are often not pursued, even when encouraged by easier logistics or by inadequate assistance from the island's governing state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-national island jurisdictions (SNIJs) manifest diverse expressions of governance within typically asymmetrical relationships with a much larger state. Dubbed ‘federacies’ in the literature on federalism, these bilateral systems of self- and shared-rule arise almost exclusively on islands. The jurisdictional powers that island federacies enjoy are principally a result of bilateral negotiations between island political elites and a (usually benign) metropole. This bargain is struck against the backdrop of a particular colonial inheritance, a local ‘sub-nationalist’ culture, and the varying ambitions of local elites to win jurisdictional powers to advance ‘sub-national’ territorial interests. At other times, however, island autonomies arise as crafted, deliberate devolutions of central governments eager to exploit islands as ‘managed’ zones for economic or security-related activity in a globalised economy. In either case sub-national autonomies often show more success and resilience as non-sovereign island jurisdictions than their sovereign island-state counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]