The composite nature of the EU constitutional legal framework and the presence of different fundamental rights protection actors within the European landscape presents a complex and fragmented scenario in search of a coherent structure. This discerning book provides a thorough analysis and offers a unique perspective on the future of fundamental rights protection in Europe. With engaging contributions from both scholars and practitioners, the chapters consider not only the role of judicial actors but also the increasing relevance of non-judicial bodies, including agencies, national human rights institutions, the Venice Commission and equality bodies. The contributors cover the different features and implications of judicial and non-judicial bodies at national, supranational and institutional level, paying close attention to their interaction and the ways in which each have a role to play in a comprehensive fundamental rights policy. Particular attention is paid to both the individual dimension of rights protection and the systemic dimension of rights monitoring and advisory, which have been largely overlooked in previous studies. Taking account of both theory and practice, this book will be a valuable resource to legal scholars in the fields of human rights protection, constitutional law and EU law. Members of national and supranational human rights organizations will also find this a valuable tool in discovering more about the legal foundations of their work. Contributors include: M. Avbelj, A. Baraggia, F. Fabbrini, M.E. Gennusa, S. Granata, S. Imamovic, K. Meuwissen, S. Menghini, S. Ninatti, O. Pollicino, C. Rauchegger, L.P. Vanoni, L. Violini

Censorship, Urdu literature, Islam, and progressive secular nationalisms in colonial India and Pakistan have a complex, intertwined history. Sarah Waheed offers a timely examination of the role of progressive Muslim intellectuals in the Pakistan movement. She delves into how these left-leaning intellectuals drew from long-standing literary traditions of Islam in a period of great duress and upheaval, complicating our understanding of the relationship between religion and secularism. Rather than seeing 'religion' and 'the secular' as distinct and oppositional phenomena, this book demonstrates how these concepts themselves were historically produced in South Asia and were deeply interconnected in the cultural politics of the left. Through a detailed analysis of trials for blasphemy, obscenity, and sedition, and feminist writers, Waheed argues that Muslim intellectuals engaged with socialism and communism through their distinctive ethical and cultural past. In so doing, she provides a fresh perspective on the creation of Pakistan and South Asian modernity.

This book argues that core concepts in EU citizenship law are riddled with latent fissures traceable back to the earliest case law on free movement of persons, and that later developments simply compounded such defects. By looking at these defects, not only could Brexit have been predicted, but it could also have been foreseen that unchecked problems with EU citizenship would potentially lead to its eventual dismantling during an era of widespread populism and considerable challenges to further integration. Using a critical constructivist approach, the author painstakingly outlines the 'temple' of citizenship from its foundations upwards, and offers a deconstruction of concepts such as 'worker', the role of non-economic actors, the principle of equal treatment, and utterances of citizenship. In identifying inherent fissures in the concept of solidarity and post national identification, this book poses critical questions and argues that we need to reconstruct EU citizenship from the bottom up.

Immigration is one of the most controversial topics of the decade. Citizens and pundits from across the political spectrum argue for major and disparate changes to American immigration law. Yet few know what American immigration law actually is and how it functions."Everyday Law for Immigrants" is an ideal guide for U.S. citizens who want a better understanding of our immigration laws as well as for migrants who make the United States their home. Romero deftly and comprehensively explains the basic challenges immigrants and foreign nationals face not only within formal immigration policy but also within American domestic law generally, including rules promulgated by federal, state, and local entities that affect noncitizens. A concise and accessible primer for interested citizens, noncitizens, and their advocates, this book provides a bird s eye view of U.S. immigration history, practice, and procedure, and constructively addresses the many legal issues in areas such as education, housing, and employment that affect foreigners who reside here. It includes easy-to-understand examples and an extensive appendix of print and Internet resources for further help."

Children of almost any age can break the law, but at what age should children first face the possibility of criminal responsibility for their alleged crimes? This work is the first global analysis of national minimum ages of criminal responsibility (MACRs), the international legal obligations that surround them, and the principal considerations for establishing and implementing respective age limits. Taking an international children's rights approach, with a rich theoretical framework and the vitality of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this work maintains a critical perspective, such as in challenging the assumptions of many children's rights scholars and advocates. Compiling the age limits and statutory sources for all countries, this book explains the broad historical origins behind most of them, identifying the recurring practical challenges that affect every country and providing the first comprehensive evidence that a general principle of international law requires all nations, regardless of their treaty ratifications, to establish respective minimum age limits.

Immigration is one of the most controversial topics of the decade. Citizens and pundits from across the political spectrum argue for major and disparate changes to American immigration law. Yet few know what American immigration law actually is and how it functions."Everyday Law for Immigrants" is an ideal guide for U.S. citizens who want a better understanding of our immigration laws as well as for migrants who make the United States their home. Romero deftly and comprehensively explains the basic challenges immigrants and foreign nationals face not only within formal immigration policy but also within American domestic law generally, including rules promulgated by federal, state, and local entities that affect noncitizens. A concise and accessible primer for interested citizens, noncitizens, and their advocates, this book provides a bird's eye view of U.S. immigration history, practice, and procedure, and constructively addresses the many legal issues in areas such as education, housing, and employment that affect foreigners who reside here. It includes easy-to-understand examples and an extensive appendix of print and Internet resources for further help.

In this book, Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou argues that, from the legal perspective, the formula 'European public order' is excessively vague and does not have an identifiable meaning; therefore, it should not be used by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in its reasoning. However, European public order can also be understood as an analytical concept which does not require a clearly defined content. In this sense, the ECtHR can impact European public order but cannot strategically shape it. The Court's impact is a by-product of individual cases which create a feedback loop with the contracting states. European public order is influenced as a result of interaction between the Court and the contracting parties. This book uses a wide range of sources and evidence to substantiate its core arguments: from a comprehensive analysis of the Court's case law to research interviews with the judges of the ECtHR.

This handbook on women's human rights is an integrated set of fourteen teaching and learning units. Together, they are designed to identify key issues in women's human rights, define concepts, outline different methodologies for achieving women's human rights, and offer a wide range of activities to facilitate teaching, learning, and discussion of women's human rights challenges. Included in every chapter are a statement of key objectives, background information, discussion questions, special issue boxes, strategies and examples for taking action, and learning activities. Also included are key UN documents and international law bearing on women's human rights. Handouts, checklists, assessment forms, and activist organizations round out the range of reference materials provided. User-friendly, jargon-free, authoritative, and packed with hands-on information, the handbook is an essential resource for anyone working in the field, human rights professionals, scholars, students, and activists.

Migration, participation, and citizenship, are central political and social concerns, are deeply affected by money. The role of money - tangible, intangible, conceptual, and as a policy tool - is understudied, overlooked, and analytically underdeveloped. For sending and receiving societies, migrants, their families, employers, NGOs, or private institutions, money defines the border, inclusion or exclusion, opportunity structures, and equality or the lack thereof. Through the analytical lens of money, the chapters in this book expose hidden and sometimes contradictory policy objectives, unwanted consequences, and inconsistent regulatory structures. The authors from a range of fields provide multiple perspectives on how money shapes decisions from all actors in migration trajectories, from micro to macro level. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book draws on case studies from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. This comprehensive overview brings to light the deep global impacts money has on migration and citizenship.

This handbook on women 's human rights is an integrated set of fourteen teaching and learning units. Together, they are designed to identify key issues in women 's human rights, define concepts, outline different methodologies for achieving women 's human rights, and offer a wide range of activities to facilitate teaching, learning, and discussion of women 's human rights challenges. Included in every chapter are a statement of key objectives, background information, discussion questions, special issue boxes, strategies and examples for taking action, and learning activities. Also included are key UN documents and international law bearing on women 's human rights. Handouts, checklists, assessment forms, and activist organizations round out the range of reference materials provided. User-friendly, jargon-free, authoritative, and packed with hands-on information, the handbook is an essential resource for anyone working in the field, human rights professionals, scholars, students, and activists.

Leading legal scholar John Witte, Jr. explores the role religion played in the development of rights in the Western legal tradition and traces the complex interplay between human rights and religious freedom norms in modern domestic and international law. He examines how US courts are moving towards greater religious freedom, while recent decisions of the pan-European courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg have harmed new religious minorities and threatened old religious traditions in Europe. Witte argues that the robust promotion and protection of religious freedom is the best way to protect many other fundamental rights today, even though religious freedom and other fundamental rights sometimes clash and need judicious balancing. He also responds to various modern critics who see human rights as a betrayal of Christianity and religious freedom as a betrayal of human rights.

Leading legal scholar John Witte, Jr. explores the role religion played in the development of rights in the Western legal tradition and traces the complex interplay between human rights and religious freedom norms in modern domestic and international law. He examines how US courts are moving towards greater religious freedom, while recent decisions of the pan-European courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg have harmed new religious minorities and threatened old religious traditions in Europe. Witte argues that the robust promotion and protection of religious freedom is the best way to protect many other fundamental rights today, even though religious freedom and other fundamental rights sometimes clash and need judicious balancing. He also responds to various modern critics who see human rights as a betrayal of Christianity and religious freedom as a betrayal of human rights.

Enacted in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) was designed to promote oversight of governmental activities, under the notion that most users would be journalists. Today, however, FOIA is largely used for purposes other than fostering democratic accountability. Instead, most requesters are either individuals seeking their own files, businesses using FOIA as part of commercial enterprises, or others with idiosyncratic purposes like political opposition research. In this sweeping, empirical study, Margaret Kwoka documents how agencies have responded to the large volume of non-oversight requesters by creating new processes, systems, and specialists, which in turn has had a deleterious impact on journalists and the media. To address this problem, Kwoka proposes a series of structural solutions aimed at shrinking FOIA to re-center its oversight purposes.

For many years, commercial speech was summarily excluded from First Amendment protection, without reason or logic. Starting in the mid-1970s, the Supreme Court began to extend protection but it remained strictly limited. In recent years, that protection has expanded, but both Court and scholars have refused to consider treating commercial speech as the First Amendment equivalent of traditionally protected expressive categories such as political speech or literature. Commercial Speech as Free Expression stands as the boldest statement yet for extending full First Amendment protection to commercial speech by proposing a new, four-part synthesis of different perspectives on the manner in which free expression fosters and protects expressive values. This book explains the complexities and subtleties of how the equivalency principle would function in real-life situations. The key is to recognize that as a matter of First Amendment value, commercial speech deserves treatment equivalent to that received by traditionally protected speech.

For the average person, genetic testing has two very different faces. The rise of genetic testing is often promoted as the democratization of genetics by enabling individuals to gain insights into their unique makeup. At the same time, many have raised concerns that genetic testing and sequencing reveal intensely personal and private information. As these technologies become increasingly available as consumer products, the ethical, legal, and regulatory challenges presented by genomics are ever looming. Assembling multidisciplinary experts, this volume evaluates the different models used to deliver consumer genetics and considers a number of key questions: How should we mediate privacy and other ethical concerns around genetic databases? Does aggregating data from genetic testing turn people into products by commercializing their data? How might this data reduce or exacerbate existing healthcare disparities? Contributing authors also provide guidance on protecting consumer privacy and safety while promoting innovation.

For the average person, genetic testing has two very different faces. The rise of genetic testing is often promoted as the democratization of genetics by enabling individuals to gain insights into their unique makeup. At the same time, many have raised concerns that genetic testing and sequencing reveal intensely personal and private information. As these technologies become increasingly available as consumer products, the ethical, legal, and regulatory challenges presented by genomics are ever looming. Assembling multidisciplinary experts, this volume evaluates the different models used to deliver consumer genetics and considers a number of key questions: How should we mediate privacy and other ethical concerns around genetic databases? Does aggregating data from genetic testing turn people into products by commercializing their data? How might this data reduce or exacerbate existing healthcare disparities? Contributing authors also provide guidance on protecting consumer privacy and safety while promoting innovation.

How should international law approach the critical issue of movement of peoples in the 21st century? This book presents a radical reappraisal of this controversial problem. Challenging present-day ideas of restrictions on freedom of movement and the international structure that controls entry to states, it argues for a new blueprint for international migration policy that eliminates waste, aids both developing and developed societies and brings attendant benefits to voluntary migrants and involuntary refugees alike. In a world of increasing disorder, it is suggested that current policy only adds to international instability and threatens the interests of a functional global community.

This collection of essays is written by some of the world's leading experts in international human rights law, and corresponds to the main junctures in the professional life of Professor David Kretzmer, a leading human right academic and practitioner. The different essays focus on contemporary human rights protection challenges. They address conceptual problems such as differences between limits and restrictions, and application of human rights standards to businesses and international organisations; legal doctrinal responses to changing realities in the field of surveillance and identity politics; the weakness of monitoring institutions engaged in standard setting; and the practical difficulties in applying international human rights law to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a manner sensitive to gender dimensions and the particular political dynamics of the situation. Collectively, the essays offer a rich picture of the current potential shortcomings of international human rights law in addressing complex problems of law, politics and ethics.

Hitherto 'less-lethal' weapons, in contrast to classical firearms and other highly destructive weapons, have literally slipped under the radar of public international law. This book is the first monograph addressing and analysing all international legal regimes applicable to less-lethal weapons, ranging from arms control treaties, international humanitarian, criminal and human rights law. In doing so the different scenarios in which less-lethal weapons come to use will be taken into account, such as law enforcement, armed conflict and law enforcement scenarios during armed conflict. The relationships between the different legal regimes will be elaborated thoroughly with a view to examining how international law responds to less-lethal weapons. The final chapter provides guidelines as well as recommendations on appropriate use and regulation of less-lethal weapons, where the different scenarios of application, such as in armed conflict and law enforcement, will be given due account.

This book explores the legitimacy of political asylum applications in the US and UK through an examination of the varieties of evidence, narratives, and documentation with which they are assessed. Credibility is the central issue in determining the legitimacy of political asylum seekers, but the line between truth and lies is often elusive, partly because desperate people often have to use deception to escape persecution. The vetting process has become infused with a climate of suspicion that not only assesses the credibility of an applicant's story and differentiates between the economic migrant and the person fleeing persecution, but also attempts to determine whether an applicant represents a future threat to the receiving country. This innovative text approaches the problem of deception from several angles, including increased demand for evidence, uses of new technologies to examine applicants' narratives, assessments of forged documents, attempts to differentiate between victims and persecutors, and ways that cultural misunderstandings can compromise the process. Essential reading for researchers and students of Political Science, International Studies, Refugee and Migration Studies, Human Rights, Anthropology, Sociology, Law, Public Policy, and Narrative Studies.

This volume elucidates and explores the interrelationships and direct causal connection between serious international crimes, serious breaches to fundamental human rights, and gross affronts to human dignity that lead to mass forced migration. Forced migration most often occurs in the context of protracted armed conflict of a noninternational nature where terrorism, fierce fighting, deep animosity, tit-for-tat retaliation, and "rapid dominance" doctrine all lead to the commission of atrocity crimes. Accordingly, this volume makes a valuable contribution to the literature and to the cause of trying to resolve mass forced displacement at its root cause, to explore the course that it takes, and how it might be prevented. The collection comprises original research by leading legal scholars and jurists focusing on the three central themes of serious international crimes, human rights, and forced migration. The work also includes a Foreword from Sir Howard Morrison, QC, former President of the Appeals Division of the International Criminal Court. The book will be a valuable resource for students, academics, researchers, and policymakers working in the areas of international law, migration, human rights, and international criminal law.

Through critical analysis of case law in European and national courts, this book reveals the significant role courts play in the protection of privacy and personal data within the new technological environment. It addresses the pressing question from a public who are increasingly aware of their privacy rights in a world of continual technological advances - namely, what can I do if my data privacy rights are breached? The expert contributors examine the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and decisions by national courts. Together, they explore how judiciaries balance privacy and data protection rights against other interests and investigate the influence European courts have on national judges. This book also probes the ways in which courts deal with strategic litigation aimed at law and policy reform and, in doing so, sheds light on the role and ability of courts to safeguard privacy and data protection rights. This topical resource will benefit both academics and students of law, particularly those interested in the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. Both policy makers and legal professionals alike will benefit from the insight into the judicial decision-making activities concerning data protection. Contributors include: M. Brkan, C. Cuijpers, P. De Hert, C. Di Cocco, J. Eichenhofer, G. Gonzalez Fuster, C. Gusy, M. Husovec, T. Kyriakou, O. Lynskey, T. Ojanen, E. Psychogiopoulou, G. Sartor

At a time of rising populism and debate about immigration, leading legal academic Jo Shaw sets out to review interactions between constitutions and constructs of citizenship. This incisive appraisal is the first sustained treatment of the relationship between citizenship and constitutional law in a comparative and transnational perspective. Drawing on examples from around the world, it assesses how countries' legal, political and cultural processes help to determine the boundaries of citizenship. For students and academics across political, social and international disciplines, Shaw offers an accessible response to some of the most pressing international questions of our age.

Hostage-taking has increased in recent years and has become a problem of worldwide concern. Terrorists and pirates have used hostages in a rising number of incidents and the violence used has escalated alarmingly. Sofia Galani examines the taking of hostages from a victim's perspective, arguing that the international community has failed to protect them. By evaluating various international law concepts and frameworks, including jurisdiction in international law, state responsibility and international human rights law, Galani explains why we are still far from recognizing hostages as victims of human rights violations. She then addresses the question of what can be done to safeguard the human rights of hostages both in theory and practice. Being the first comprehensive study of the human rights of hostages, this book fills a critical gap in the literature for human rights lawyers and researchers in the field.