"Choice" Outstanding Academic Title 2003

.,."A thorough summary of the trajectory of current case law on the legal regulation of U.S. citizens' intimate lives. . . . A valuable introduction to increasingly important and salient legal questions about the constitutional limits on the state's ability to shape intimate lives in the United States."
--" Political Science Quarterly"

.,."A worthy assessment of the law of intimate association and personal decision-making. For those intrigued by the Court's human side, Ball provides a sufficient glimpse without raising the curtain on its realm of privacy that the justices have strived to protect.
-- "Trial"

"Despite the controversial content of many of the cases, Mr. Ball maintains an air of bemused detachment and does not openly take sides. This is not a polemic. With few exceptions, the prevailing tone is light and scholarly. The goal is to illuminate, not to persuade."
--"New York Law Journal"

"In this truly fascinating and spellbinding work, Ball tells many tales."
-- "Choice"

Personal rights, such as the right to procreate--or not--and the right to die generate endless debate. This book maps out the legal, political, and ethical issues swirling around personal rights. Howard Ball shows how the Supreme Court has grappled with the right to reproduce and to abort, and takes on the issue of auto-euthanasia and assisted suicide, from Karen Ann Quinlan through Kevorkian and just recently to the Florida case of the woman who was paralyzed by a gunshot from her mother and who had the plug pulled on herself.

For the last half of the twentieth century, the justices of the Supreme Court have had to wrestle with newand difficult life and death questions for them as well as for doctors and their patients, medical ethicists, sociologists, medical practitioners, clergy, philosophers, law makers, and judges. The Supreme Court in the Intimate Lives of Americans offers a look at these issues as they emerged and examines the manner in which the men and women of the U.S. Supreme Court addressed them.

The book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection. Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness (CPC). According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private 'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing. The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience. Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished. Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence.

Every year, thousands of people seek asylum in the United States because they have been persecuted in other countries due to their race, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion. In seeking refuge and protection, these immigrants must rely on the American court system to help them achieve safety from the great harm they have suffered.

In her unique and compelling judicial memoir, Susan Yarbrough, a former US immigration judge, highlights five significant asylum cases that she heard and decided during almost eighteen years on the benchcases that profoundly changed her not only as a judge, but also as a person.

Yarbrough recounts heartrending testimony described against the background of the countries in which the persecution took place, following each account with personal reflections on how she was emotionally and spiritually transformed by each person who testified. From Josue Maldonado, persecuted in El Salvador because of his religion, to Daniel Quetzal, an Indian from Guatemala who was tied naked to a pole and tortured because of his political opinion, the cases that the author shares provide an unforgettable glimpse into the lives of courageous people who risked everything for peace and freedom in the United States.

Bench-Pressed is the story of five asylum seekers and the judge who was irrevocably changed by the intersection of her life with theirs.

Wysong analyzes the nature and extent of the involvement of seven major health and safety professional organizations in the development of the most significant national reform effort in occupational health policy since the OSA Act of 1970: The High Risk Occupational Disease Notification and Prevention Act. The professions have long been a focus of study in sociology; however, this is the first book to examine how the interests and involvement of health professionals' organizations on a national health policy issue are linked to external interests and dynamic contextual factors. By illuminating how professional societies' policy choices are embedded within and shaped by economic and political contexts, Wysong refines prevailing new class interpretations of professionals' interests where policy reforms are concerned. This book should be of particular concern to scholars and researchers involved with medical sociology, the sociology of work, complex organizations, social change, and occupational health policy.

The changes made by the Lisbon Treaty suggest that its entry into force in December 2009 marks a new stage in the shaping of the EU's commitment to the protection of fundamental rights. This book's concern is to provide an examination of the several (and interlocking) challenges which the Lisbon reforms present. The book will not only address the fresh and intriguing challenges for the EU as an entity committed to the protection and promotion of fundamental rights presented by developments 'post-Lisbon', but also a number of conundrums about the scope and method of protection of fundamental rights in the EU which existed 'pre-Lisbon' and which endure. The book consists of three parts. The first part is concerned with the safeguarding of fundamental rights in Europe's internal market. The second part of the book is entitled 'The Scope of Fundamental Rights in EU Law' and the chapters discuss the reach of fundamental rights and their horizontal dimension. The last part of this book deals with 'The Constitutional Dimension of Fundamental Rights' analysing the special relationship between the ECJ and the ECtHR and the issue of rights competition between the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and national rights catalogues.

This volume of essays, situated at the interface between legal doctrine and legal and political philosophy, discusses the conceptual and normative issues posed by the right to inclusion and exclusion the EU claims for itself when enacting and enforcing immigration and asylum policy under the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. In particular, the essays probe how this alleged right acquires institutional form; how the enactment and enforcement of the EU's external borders render possible and undermine the claim to such a right; and how the fundamental distinctions that underpin this alleged right, such as inside/outside and citizen/alien, are being disrupted and reconfigured in ways that might render the EU's civic and territorial boundaries more porous. The volume is divided into three parts. A first set of essays delves into the empirical aspects that define the institutional context of the EU's alleged jus includendi et excludendi. A second set of essays is theoretical in character, and critically scrutinizes the basic distinctions that govern this alleged right. The third set of essays discusses politico-legal alternatives, exploring how the conceptual and normative problems to which this alleged right gives rise might be dealt with, both legally and politically. The contributors to the volume are Peter Fitzpatrick, Bonnie Honig, Dora Kostakopoulou, Hans Lindahl, Valsamis Mitsilegas, Helen Oosterom-Staples, Bert van Roermund, Jo Shaw, Bernhard Waldenfels, Neil Walker and Ricard Zapata Barrero. The volume also includes a comprehensive introduction by the editor, highlighting systematic connections between the three parts and individual essays which comprise it.

The book gives insight into the structures and developments of the fundamental rights protection in Europe which is effective at the levels of the national Constitutions, the European Convention of Human Rights and, for the EU member States of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter. The contributions of renowned academics from various European countries demonstrate the functional interconnection of these protection systems which result in an increasing convergence. Basic questions are reflected, such as human dignity as foundation of fundamental rights or positive action as a specific form of equality as well as the concept of rights convergence. In this latter contribution the forms of direct reception of a different legal order and of the functional transfer of principles and concepts are analyzed. Particular reference is made to the EU Charter, the United Kingdom Human Rights Act as well as to France and Germany. It becomes obvious how important interpretation is for the harmonization of national and conventional fundamental rights protection. Traditional institutional approaches like the dualist transformation concept in Germany are functionally set aside in the harmonization process through constitutional interpretation. Specific studies are dedicated to the field of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter and to the European impacts on the national fundamental rights protection in selected countries such as the "new democracies" Poland, Romania and Kosovo as well as more traditional systems such as Spain, Italy, the Nordic countries or Turkey.

This in-depth examination of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 provides a chronological review of the events, ordinances, and pervasive attitudes that preceded, coincided with, and followed its enactment. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a historic act of legislation that demonstrated how the federal government of the United States once openly condoned racial discrimination. Once the Exclusion Act passed, the door was opened to further limitation of Asians in America during the late 19th century, such as the Scott Act of 1888 and the Geary Act of 1892, and increased hatred towards and violence against Chinese people based on the misguided belief they were to blame for depressed wage levels and unemployment among Caucasians. This title traces the complete evolution of the Exclusion Act, including the history of Chinese immigration to the United States, the factors that served to increase their populations here, and the subsequent efforts to limit further immigration and encourage the departure of the Chinese already in America. Provides excerpts from nearly two dozen original documents, including legislation, letters, essays, and other materials related to the sanctioning of discrimination against the Chinese in the United States Presents a chronology of significant actions and events that preceded and facilitated passage of the Exclusion Act, as well as occurrences after its passage and leading to its repeal Includes a bibliography of over 60 significant sources that reflect attitudes, news reports, and legislation from the time of the Exclusion Act and contemporary viewpoints on the historical event Contains a helpful glossary of terms commonly employed in a discussion of the Chinese-American experience and passage of the Exclusion Act

Professors Grear and Kotze have masterfully fashioned a landmark work on human rights and the natural environment. This Research Handbook is more than just a library of current ideas about this important topic; it is an intellectual tour de force that stimulates new thinking on the place of social justice and moral responsibility in the Anthropocene.' - Benjamin J. Richardson, University of Tasmania, Australia'As the connections between human rights and the environment become deeper and broader, this Handbook offers an indispensable point of reference. A seriously impressive group of scholars addresses a seriously interesting range of themes that inform and challenge the totality of our understanding.' - Philippe Sands, University College London, UK Bringing together leading international scholars in the field, this authoritative Handbook combines critical and doctrinal scholarship to illuminate some of the challenging tensions in the legal relationships between humans and the environment, and human rights and environment law. The accomplished contributors provide researchers and students with a rich source of reflection and engagement with the topic. Split into five parts, the book covers epistemologies, core values and closures, constitutionalisms, universalisms and regionalisms, with a final concluding section exploring major challenges and alternative futures. An essential resource for students and scholars of human rights law, the volume will also be of significant interest to those in the fields of environmental and constitutional law. Contributors: S. Adelman, U. Beyerlin, K. Bosselmann, D.R Boyd, P.D. Burdon, L. Code, L. Collins, S. Coyle, C.G Gonzalez, E. Grant, A. Grear, E. Hey, C.J. Iorns Magallanes, B. Jessup, A. Jones, A. A. Khavari, L.J. Kotze, R. Lyster, K. Morrow, A. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, W. Scholtz, P. Simons, S. Theriault, F. Venter

This book presents a comparative study on access to public information in the context of the main legal orders worldwide(inter alia China,France,Germany,Japan,Russia,Sweden,United States).The international team of authors analyzes the Transparency- and Freedom-to-Information legislation with regard to the scope of the right to access, limitations of this right inherent in the respective national laws, the procedure, the relationship with domestic legislation on administrative procedure, as well as judicial protection. It particularly focuses on the Brazilian law establishing the right of access to information, which is interpreted as a benchmark for regulations in other Latin-American states.

It's RBG like you've never seen her before! Using a unique mix of first-person narrative, hilarious comic panels and essential facts, Dean Robbins introduces young readers to an American trailblazer. The first book in an exciting new non-fiction series, You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg focuses on Ruth's lifelong mission to bring equality and justice to all. Sarah Green's spot-on comic illustrations bring this icon to life, and engaging backmatter instructs readers on how to be more like Ruth! Includes: hilarious comic panels essential facts.

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is grounded in the human rights perspective. Like other civil rights legislation, the ADA is aimed at an oppressed group, persons with disabilities, who have been denied equal opportunities to participate in the larger society. As Pardeck makes clear, the goal of ADA, ending discrimination against people with disabilities in all facets of American life, is aligned with the philosophies and traditions of the social work profession. Pardeck provides a detailed overview and analysis of the ADA that will help professional social workers as well as students entering the field realize the full significance of the new rights and protections extended to people with disabilities. He also provides specific case studies and examples to illustrate the range of opportunities afforded the disabled and their advocates.

Poor public resource management and the global financial crisis curbing fundamental fiscal space, millions thrown into poverty, and authoritarian regimes running successful criminal campaigns with the help of financial assistance are all phenomena that raise fundamental questions around finance and human rights. They also highlight the urgent need for more systematic and robust legal and economic thinking about sovereign finance and human rights. This edited collection aims to contribute to filling this gap by introducing novel legal theories and analyses of the links between sovereign debt and human rights from a variety of perspectives. These chapters include studies of financial complicity, UN sanctions, ethics, transitional justice, criminal law, insolvency proceedings, millennium development goals, global financial architecture, corporations, extraterritoriality, state of necessity, sovereign wealth and hedge funds, project financing, state responsibility, international financial institutions, the right to development, UN initiatives, litigation, as well as case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America. These chapters are then theorised by the editors in an introductory chapter. In July 2012 the UN Human Rights Council finally issued its own guidelines on foreign debt and human rights, yet much remains to be done to promote better understanding of the legal and economic implications of the interface between finance and human rights. This book will contribute to that understanding as well as help practitioners in their everyday work. The authors include world-renowned lawyers and economists, experienced practitioners and officials from international organisations.

This book is about privacy interests in English tort law. Despite the recent recognition of a misuse of private information tort, English law remains underdeveloped. The presence of gaps in the law can be explained, to some extent, by a failure on the part of courts and legal academics to reflect on the meaning of privacy. Through comparative, critical and historical analysis, this book seeks to refine our understanding of privacy by considering our shared experience of it. To this end, the book draws on the work of Norbert Elias and Karl Popper, among others, and compares the English law of privacy with the highly elaborate German law. In doing so, the book reaches the conclusion that an unfortunate consequence of the way English privacy law has developed is that it gives the impression that justice is only for the rich and famous. If English courts are to ensure equalitarian justice, the book argues that they must reflect on the value of privacy and explore the bounds of legal possibility.

This book provides a comprehensive human rights analysis of key areas of law affecting older persons, including legal capacity; elder abuse; accommodation and aged care; healthcare; employment; financial security, retirement, and estate planning; and social and cultural participation. The research identifies individual autonomy and participation in decision-making as fundamental to a human rights-based approach to elder law. The book argues that a paradigm shift must occur away from traditional medical and charity-based understandings of 'old age' to instead acknowledge older persons as active holders of enforceable rights. The book argues that a Convention on the Rights of Older Persons is an essential tool in achieving this, but that even without a dedicated treaty there is much to be gained from a human rights-based approach. Significantly, because the issues arising in 'old age' are often the culmination of experiences occurring throughout the life course, a human rights-based approach to elder law must begin with a commitment to human rights for people of all ages.

Although Americans generally think that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is focused only on preventing terrorism, one office within that agency has a humanitarian mission. Its Asylum Office adjudicates applications from people fleeing persecution in their homelands. Lives in the Balance is a careful empirical analysis of how Homeland Security decided these asylum cases over a recent fourteen-year period. Day in and day out, asylum officers make decisions with life-or-death consequences: determining which applicants are telling the truth and are at risk of persecution in their home countries, and which are ineligible for refugee status in America. In Lives in the Balance, the authors analyze a database of 383,000 cases provided to them by the government in order to better understand the effect on grant rates of a host of factors unrelated to the merits of asylum claims, including the one-year filing deadline, whether applicants entered the United States with a visa, whether applicants had dependents, whether they were represented, how many asylum cases their adjudicator had previously decided, and whether or not their adjudicator was a lawyer. The authors also examine the degree to which decisions were consistent among the eight regional asylum offices and within each of those offices. The authors' recommendations , including repeal of the one-year deadline , would improve the adjudication process by reducing the impact of non-merits factors on asylum decisions. If adopted by the government, these proposals would improve the accuracy of outcomes for those whose lives hang in the balance.

Anita Whitney was a child of wealth and privilege who became a vocal leftist, early in the twentieth century, became a vocal leftist, supporting radical labor groups such as the Wobblies and helping to organize the Communist Labor Party. In 1919 she was arrested and charged with violating California's recently passed laws banning any speech or activity intended to change the American political and economic systems. The story of the Supreme Court case that grew out of Whitney's conviction, told in full in this book, is also the story of how Americans came to enjoy the most liberal speech laws in the world. In clear and engaging language, noted legal scholar Philippa Strum traces the fateful interactions of Whitney, a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims; Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, a brilliant son of immigrants; the teeming immigrant neighborhoods and left wing labor politics of the early twentieth century; and the lessons some Harvard Law School professors took from World War I-era restrictions onspeech. Though the Supreme Court upheld Whitney's conviction, it included an opinion by Justice Brandeis-joined by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.-that led to adecisive change in the way the Court understood First Amendment free speech protections. Speaking Freely takes us into the discussions behind this dramatic change, as Holmes, Brandeis, Judge Learned Hand, and Harvard Law professors Zechariah Chafee and Felix Frankfurter debate the extent of the First Amendment and the important role of free speech in a democratic society. In Brandeis's opinion, we see this debate distilled in a statement of the value of free speech and the harm that its suppression does to a democracy, along with reflections on the importance of freedom from government control for the founders and the drafters of the First Amendment. Through Whitney v. California and its legacy, Speaking Freely shows how the American approach to speech, differing as it does that of every other country, reflects the nation's unique history. Nothing less than a primer in the history of free speech rights in the US, the book offers a sobering and timely lesson as fear once more raises the specter of repression.

Written by a specialist team of academics, judges and practising lawyers from the UK and abroad under the editorial direction of Dr Nicole Moreham and Sir Mark Warby, The Law of Privacy and the Media gives expert guidance for practitioners working on cases relating to privacy and the media, and will be of value to academics with an interest in this field. The first two editions of this book quickly established themselves as the leading reference works on the rapidly developing law of privacy in England and Wales. They have been frequently referred to in argument in privacy cases, and extracts have been cited with approval in judgments of the High Court and Courts of Appeal. Following the Leveson Inquiry, the laws and regulations governing the English media have come under intense scrutiny. This work has been revised and updated to incorporate discussion of both those debates and the continually changing landscape of privacy protection. The book offers an overview of English media privacy law, outlining key legislation and legal rules. It includes comparative perspectives and addresses current debates about the form and scope of modern privacy protection. The Law of Privacy and the Media provides detailed but accessible chapters on the various forms of wrongful publication of personal information, as well as intrusion into physical privacy, before considering justifications and defences, remedies and the procedure to be followed in such cases. This edition includes new chapters giving separate consideration to new media and harassment by publication. The Law of Privacy and the Media is essential reading for all those who act for or against the media or who have a general interest in the subject.

Dignity is seen, commonly, as an ethical obligation owed to human persons. The dimensions of this obligation are subject to wide discussion and defy universal agreement. Dignity is seen, commonly, as an ethical obligation owed to human persons. Dignity as a Human Right? examines dignity within the prism of death, and more particularly, its humane and dignified management. Although there is no domestic or international right to die with dignity, within the right to life should, arguably, be a right to dignity and self-determination especially at its end-stage; for, a powerful interface exists between the right to human dignity and the very right to life, to love and humanity as well as compassion at its conclusion. Legislative efforts--nationally and internationally--have begun to recognize a right to die with dignity when a condition of medical futility exists. There are presently five states and the District of Columbia, together with a judicial interpretation from the Montana Supreme Court, which recognize death assistance for the terminally ill. Internationally, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland are seen as leaders in this recognition. The United Nations has played a significant role in framing end-of-life decision making within the ambit of human rights protection. The UN Charter states unequivocally that the dignity and worth of the human person must be protected and safeguarded. Similarly, among other instruments, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights acknowledges that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

In recent years a strand of thinking has developed in private law scholarship which has come to be known as 'rights' or 'rights-based' analysis. Rights analysis seeks to develop an understanding of private law obligations that is driven, primarily or exclusively, by the recognition of the rights we have against each other, rather than by other influences on private law, such as the pursuit of community welfare goals. Notions of rights are also assuming greater importance in private law in other respects. Human rights instruments are having an increasing influence on private law doctrines. And in the law of unjust enrichment, an important debate has recently begun on the relationship between restitution of rights and restitution of value. This collection is a significant contribution to debate about the role of rights in private law. It includes essays by leading private law scholars addressing fundamental questions about the role of rights in private law as a whole and within particular areas of private law. The collection includes contributions by advocates and critics of rights-based approaches and provides a thorough and balanced analysis of the relationship between rights and private law.

This book addresses the principle of proportionality, which is currently one of the most important instruments of judicial review, from both analytical and theory of law perspectives. As such, the analysis provided is far more comprehensive and can be applied to all areas of law, not just constitutional law. On the one hand, the volume offers a broad perspective on several aspects related to proportionality, such as its structure, the balancing methodology and the distinction between rules and principles. On the other, it provides an innovative, normativist and analytical approach to proportionality, helping readers understand its structure and behaviour.

This remarkable book covers the impact of human rights on intellectual property law in the most comprehensive review ever undertaken. It is destined to influence the future development of this field and constitutes an essential resource for both scholars and practitioners.' - Jerome H. Reichman, Duke University School of Law, US'Professor Geiger has assembled an extraordinary group of leading legal scholars, human rights lawyers, judges, and international civil servants to provide comprehensive, up-to-the-minute coverage of all the major issues implicated by the interaction between human rights and intellectual property. This volume will be required reading for anyone interested in this increasingly important topic.' - Beebe Barton, New York University School of Law, US 'Intellectual property law draws boundaries around human creativity. In doing so it intersects with the principles and values of the human rights tradition. In this remarkable volume, Professor Christophe Geiger has brought together a great team of scholars to explore this intersection. The result is a Research Handbook that is comprehensive in its coverage of jurisdictions, issues and debates. It is an indispensable starting point for researchers wishing to understand the field and its many topics.' - Peter Drahos, Australian National University and Queen Mary University of London, UK Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property is a comprehensive reference work on the intersection of human rights and intellectual property law. Resulting from a field-specific expertise of over 40 scholars and professionals of world renown, the book explores the practical and doctrinal implications of human rights considerations on intellectual property law and jurisprudence. The various chapters of the book scrutinize issues related to interactions among and between norms of different legal families and the role of human rights in the development of a balanced intellectual property legal framework. The innovative approach of the book is reflected in its structure: the first part provides a foundation for the human rights and intellectual property discourse; the second sheds light on the human rights implications for the development of intellectual property; and the third (characterized by a human rights perspective) is devoted to the specific issues of interaction between human rights and intellectual property. Exploring in depth a variety of interactions between human rights and intellectual property law, the book will be of great interest to academics and experts working within human rights, intellectual property, development, international relations and international public law. Contributors include: A. Abdel-Latif, T. Aplin, C. Avila Plaza, D.B. Barbosa, A.Brown, C. Chiarolla, J. Christoffersen, C.M. Correa, T. Dreier, P. Ducoulombier, L.Falcon, S. Farran, S. Frankel, D. Gangjee, M. Ganzhorn, C. Geiger, D. Gervais, G. Ghidini, J. Griffiths, H. Grosse Ruse-Khan, L.R. Helfer, P. von Kapff, A. Kupzok, J.D. Lipton, D. Matthews, T. Mylly, A. Peukert, A. Plomer, J.M. Samuels, M. Senftleben, X. Seuba, C. Sganga, R. Smith, A. Stazi, T. Takenaka, C. Trautmann, D. Voorhoof, C. Waelde, H. Wager, J. Watal, G. Westkamp, P.K. Yu