This book presents a political understanding of socio-economic rights by contextualising constitution-makers' and judges' decision-making in terms of Ireland's rich history of people's struggles for justice 'from below' between 1848 and the present. Its theoretical framework incorporates critical legal studies and world-systems analysis. It performs a critical discourse analysis of constitution-making processes in 1922 and 1937 as well as subsequent property, trade union, family and welfare rights case law. It traces the marginalisation of socio-economic rights in Ireland from specific, local and institutional factors to the contested balance of core-peripheral and social relations in the world-system. The book demonstrates the endurance of ideological understandings of state constitutionalism as inherently neutral between interests. Unemployed marches, housing protestors and striking workers, however, provided important challenges and oppositional discourses. Recognising these enduring forms of power and ideology is vital if we are to assess critically the possibilities and limits of contesting socio-economic rights today.

Domestic Abuse and Human Rights presents an overview of the relevance of the European Convention on Human Rights to domestic abuse. It has three aims: first, to consider the relevant case law and application of the key articles to questions around domestic abuse; second, to consider at a theoretical level the balance between protection and autonomy at the heart of the legal response to domestic abuse; third, to propose practical application of a human rights approach to issues around domestic abuse, with particular emphasis placed on the significance of the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women. The book argues that a human rights approach requires states to take a proactive stance towards domestic abuse. It should no longer be regarded as a private matter, but as a human rights approach mandating state intervention, although within limits. So understood the European Convention on Human Rights provides a powerful impetus for states to ensure an effective response to the major problem of domestic abuse.

Cultural Expertise and Litigation addresses the role of social scientists as a source of expert evidence, and is a product of their experiences and observations of cases involving litigants of South Asian origin. What is meant in court by "culture," "custom" and "law"? How are these concepts understood by witnesses, advocates, judges and litigants? How far are cross-cultural understandings facilitated - or obscured - in the process? What strategies are adopted? And which ones turn out to be successful in court? How is cultural understanding - and misunderstanding - produced in these circumstances? And how, moreover, do the decisions in these cases not only reflect, but impact, upon the law and the legal procedure? Cultural Expertise and Litigation addresses these questions, as it elicits the patterns, conflicts and narratives that characterize the legal role of social scientists in a variety of de facto plural settings - including immigration and asylum law, family law, citizenship law and criminal law.

Sanctuary Practices in International Perspectives examines the diverse, complex, and mutating practice of providing sanctuary to asylum-seekers. The ancient tradition of church sanctuary underwent a revival in the late 1970s. Immigrants living without legal status and their supporters, first in the United Kingdom, and then in the US, Canada, and elsewhere in Europe, have resorted to sanctuary practices to avoid and resist arrest and deportation by state authorities. Sanctuary appeared amidst a dramatic rise in asylum-seekers arriving in Western countries and a simultaneous escalation in national and international efforts to discourage and control their arrival and presence through myriad means, including deportation. This collection of papers by prominent US, European, Canadian, and Japanese scholars is the first to place contemporary sanctuary practices in international, theoretical, and historical perspective. Moving beyond isolated case studies of sanctuary activities and movements, it reveals sanctuary as a far more complex, varied, theoretically-rich, and institutionally-adaptable set of practices.

This timely volume discusses the much debated and controversial subject of the presence of religion in the public sphere. The book is divided in three sections. In the first the public/private distinction is studied mainly from a theoretical point of view, through the contributions of lawyers, philosophers and sociologists. In the following sections their proposals are tested through the analysis of two case studies, religious dress codes and places of worship. These sections include discussions on some of the most controversial recent cases from around Europe with contributions from some of the leading experts in the area of law and religion. Covering a range of very different European countries including Turkey, the UK, Italy and Bulgaria, the book uses comparative case studies to illustrate how practice varies significantly even within Europe. It reveals how familiarization with religious and philosophical diversity in Europe should lead to the modification of legal frameworks historically designed to accommodate majority religions. This in turn should give rise to recognition of new groups and communities and eventually, a more adequate response to the plurality of religions and beliefs in European society.

When does religious accommodation undermine the autonomy of others? On what grounds should religious accommodation claims be limited? This book offers an original model of religious accommodation which can be applied in practice in secular liberal democracies where religious diversity continues to pose various challenges. Firstly, the book makes a case for religious accommodation by addressing the key normative challenges raised by religious claims. Secondly, it offers a typology of how religious claims can be managed and limited through the careful balancing of competing interests. The author draws on case study examples from jurisdictions subject to the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union's Court of Justice such as the UK, Germany and France. The result is a timely contribution to the debate on how a legal duty or policy approach in favour of religious accommodation can be applied in practice. Moreover, the proposed model offers criteria that can be used to guide the implementation of equality policies in contexts such as employment and education. The book will be of interest to academics, legal practitioners and policy-makers.

This book considers the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees contribution to international refugee law since the establishment of UNHCR by the United Nations General Assembly in 1951. The book explores the historical and statutory foundations that create an indelible link between UNHCR and international refugee law. This book charts the significant evolution that has occurred in the organisation s role throughout the last sixty years, looking at both the formal means by which UNHCR s mandate may be modified, and the techniques UNHCR has used to facilitate the changes in its role, thereby revealing a significant evolution in the organisation s role since the onset of the crisis in refugee protection in the 1980 s. UNHCR, itself, has demonstrated its organizational autonomy as the primary agent for the adaptation of its responsibilities and work related to international refugee law. The author does suggest however that UNHCR needs to continue to extend and strengthen its role related to international refugee law if UNHCR is to ensure a stronger legal framework for the protection of refugees as well as a fuller respect for refugees rights in practice.

UNHCR and International Refugee Law should be of particular interest to refugee lawyers as well as academics and students of refugee law and international law, and anyone concerned with the important role that UNHCR plays in the protection of refugees today.

The end of the Cold War has ushered a restructuring of the institutions of the European Community, culminating into its enlargement to Eastern Europe, under the aegis of economic integration, democracy and human rights. This book examines the development and the role of human rights in the European Union, from its inception as an economic co-operation project to an organisation of European States with a political agenda that goes beyond its borders. It argues that human rights have become an important component of the foreign policy of the European Union and that this role has grown from the inception of the Union through the Cold War and thereafter onto the process of enlargement of the Union. The book goes on to analyse the EU's policy on minorities, as a particular example of human rights. It considers the level of their protection within the EU and the framework of international law, and compares minority rights in the older Member States including France, Germany and the UK, with newer Eastern European states.

The right to health, having been previously neglected is now being deployed more and more often in litigation, activism and policy-making across the world. International bodies such as the WHO, UNAIDS, World Bank and WTO are increasingly using or being evaluated with reference to health rights, and international NGOs frequently use the language of rights in campaigning and in more concrete litigation. This book brings together an impressive array of internationally renowned scholars in the areas of law, philosophy and health policy to critically interrogate the development of rights based approaches to health. The volume integrates discussion of the right to health at a theoretical level in law and ethics, with the difficult substantive issues where the right is relevant, and with emerging systems of global health governance. The contributions to this volume will add to our theoretical and practical understanding of rights based approaches to health.

Touching on the laws and practices of a wide array of countries around the globe, this book examines the extent to which refugees and asylum-seekers' right to work is protected by international human rights law. The book examines a number of key international treaties, national constitutions and some foundational cases from national courts in order to make the case that the practise of restricting refugees and asylum-seekers access to the labour market is illegal. In so doing, the author examines some intricate legal questions, such as the interpretation of the Refugee Convention's provisions restricting rights to refugees 'lawfully staying', the application of racial discrimination to citizenship distinctions, and the ways in which limitations on human rights are applicable in this context. The book also looks at some broader philosophical questions such as the meaning of equality and human dignity, and the legitimacy of the right to work. The book goes on to explore broader debates concerning migration and 'open borders' in order to unpack the fears that drive many countries' restrictive measures. Readers are invited to consider whether the world would be a better place with more freedom of movement. It is a unique stand-alone treatment of the subject and includes the Michigan Guidelines on the Right to Work. Reworking the Relationship between Asylum-Seekers and Employment is written in an accessible style that will appeal to academics, policy-makers, practitioners and students. It combines a strong black-letter approach with a law in context approach that explains why the law takes its current shape and questions current orthodoxy.

In 2000, the European Union adopted a Directive against discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin. This book provides an in-depth evaluation of the Race Directive and its effects, questioning how successful the Race directive has been. The EU Race Directive discusses the history of the fight against racial discrimination in the EU and the equality clauses in international Human Rights instruments. It then examines the terms race, racism and racial discrimination and equality in the Directive. The book also looks at the concepts of equality which can be distinguished in the Race Directive and in the subsequent developments at EU level. Examining whether the Directive has improved the protection against racial or ethnic origin discrimination for people within the EU, the book concludes with an assessment of how far the EU has come on the road to racial equality with the adoption of the Race Directive and the subsequent developments. It also contains proposals for possible improvements. The comprehensive and up-to-date analysis in this book goes beyond most other books written on the subject and the specific focus on racism and racial discrimination means a more thorough examination than most texts focusing on discrimination on a larger number of grounds. This book will be of great value to students and academics in (European) law, social sciences and human rights, researching racism, racial discrimination, ethnicity and race relations. It will also be useful for policy makers.

This book critically examines the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and evaluates its impact from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The book includes both a domestic and international analysis of the effectiveness of the HRA, and also considers possible future developments in policy and practise as well as contemplating the potential for a British Bill of Rights. The editors have collected pieces from contributors drawn from diverse spheres, all of whom are internationally recognised for their impact in the field of human rights law. Contributors include members of the bench in the United Kingdom and Australia, academics, researchers, members of NGOs, and campaigners as well as people's testimony of lived experiences in relation to the Human Rights Act. Valuable contributions from the likes of Costas Douzinas, Keith Ewing, Helen Fenwick, Lady Hale, Irene Khan, Michael Kirby, Francesca Klug, Peter Tatchell and others have resulted in a book which draws out the connections between legal framework, theory, and the actual experience of the protection afforded to groups and individuals by the HRA. Confronting the Human Rights Act 1998 will be of particular interest to scholars and students of Law, International Studies and Political Science.

Due process protections are among the most important Constitutional protections in the United States, yet they do not apply to non-citizens facing detention and deportation. Due Process Denied describes the consequences of this lack of due process through the stories of deportees and detainees. People who have lived nearly all of their lives in the United States have been detained and deported for minor crimes, without regard for constitutional limits on disproportionate punishment. The court's insistence that deportation is not punishment does not align with the experiences of deportees. For many, deportation is one of the worst imaginable punishments.

Islam, Europe and Emerging Legal Issues brings together vital analysis of the challenges that Europe poses for an expanding Islam and that Islam poses for Europe, within their ever-evolving religious, legal, and social environments. This book gathers some of the best thinking on Islam and the law affecting current and contested issues that can no longer be ignored, particularly as they have found their way before the European Court of Human Rights. Contributors include leading authorities who are working at the heart of this generation's law and religion questions in Europe and across the world. This book outlines implications for all those who look to Europe-from both within and without-for models of human rights implementation and multi-cultural accommodation.

Here We Are is a heart-wrenching memoir about an immigrant family's American Dream, the justice system that took it away, and the daughter who fought to get it back, from NPR correspondent Aarti Namdev Shahani. The Shahanis came to Queens--from India, by way of Casablanca--in the 1980s. They were undocumented for a few unsteady years and then, with the arrival of their green cards, they thought they'd made it. This is the story of how they did, and didn't; the unforeseen obstacles that propelled them into years of disillusionment and heartbreak; and the strength of a family determined to stay together. Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares follows the lives of Aarti, the precocious scholarship kid at one of Manhattan's most elite prep schools, and her dad, the shopkeeper who mistakenly sells watches and calculators to the notorious Cali drug cartel. Together, the two represent the extremes that coexist in our country, even within a single family, and a truth about immigrants that gets lost in the headlines. It isn't a matter of good or evil; it's complicated. Ultimately, Here We Are is a coming-of-age story, a love letter from an outspoken modern daughter to her soft-spoken Old World father. She never expected they'd become best friends.

This book examines law and religion from the perspective of its case law. Each chapter focuses on a specific case from a Commonwealth jurisdiction, examining the history and impact of the case, both within the originating jurisdiction and its wider global context. The book contains chapters from leading and emerging scholars from across the Commonwealth, including from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Malaysia, India and Nigeria. The cases are divided into four sections covering: - Foundational Questions in Law and Religion - Freedom of Religion around the Commonwealth - Religion and state relations around the Commonwealth - Rights, Relationships and Religion around the Commonwealth. Like religion itself, the case law covers a wide spectrum of life. This diversity is reflected in the cases covered in this book, which include: - Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v Home Minister on the use of the Muslim name for God by non-Muslims in Malaysia - The Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic) which determined the meaning of religion in Australia - Eweida v UK which clarified the application of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights - R v Big M Drug Mart on the individual protections of religious freedom under the Canadian Charter of Rights. The book examines how legal disputes involving religion are among the most contested in the courts and shows that in these cases, passions run high and the outcomes can have significant consequences for all involved.

This book examines the application of UK Criminal and Human Rights Law to people and circumstances outside the United Kingdom. Building upon previous analyses which have focused on a single aspect of extraterritorially, this book examines the fields of Criminal and Human Rights law as the two main areas of non-private law which are frequently applied across borders. Both fields are placed in context before being drawn together in a coherent and systematic way. The book examines recent law and practice, as well as historic developments and explores the concept of enforcement. The author's analysis includes coverage of topics such as the criminalisation of sex-tourism, the extradition of white-collar criminals and the application of human rights law to Iraq following American and British intervention in the region. Law Across Borders goes on to point the way forward in the development of the extraterritorial application of public law, and suggests ways in which greater coherence can be achieved. This book will be of particular interest to practitioners, academics and scholars of International Law, Human Rights Law and Criminal Law. It is unique in its ambition to offer a comprehensive description and analysis of the extra-territorial application of UK Human Rights Law and Criminal Law in a single text.

In the last decade a new tool has been developed in the global war against official corruption through the introduction of the offense of "illicit enrichment" in almost every multilateral anti-corruption convention. Illicit enrichment is defined in these conventions to include a reverse burden clause which triggers an automatic presumption that any public official found in "possession of inexplicable wealth" must have acquired it illicitly. However, the reversal of the burden of proof clauses raises an important human rights issue because they conflict with the accused individual 's right to be presumed innocent. Unfortunately, the recent spate of international legislation against official corruption provides no clear guidelines on how to proceed in balancing the right of the accused to be presumed innocent against the competing right of society to trace and recapture illicitly acquired national wealth.

Combating Economic Crimes therefore sets out to address what has been left unanswered by these multilateral conventions, to wit, the level of burden of proof that should be placed on a public official who is accused of illicitly enriching himself from the resources of the State, balanced against the protection of legitimate community interests and expectations for a corruption-free society. The book explores the doctrinal foundations of the right to a presumption of innocence and reviews the basic due process protections afforded to all accused persons in criminal trials by treaty, customary international law, and municipal law. The book then goes on to propose a framework for balancing and situationalizing competing human rights and public interests in situations involving possible official corruption.

Freedom of Information (FOI) in China is often perceived as a recent and intriguing phenomenon. This book presents a more complex and detailed understanding of the evolution of FOI in China, using information flow analysis to explore the gradual development of government receptivity to FOI in an information environment through time. The book argues that it is necessary to reassess the widely divergent origins of FOI reform in China, and asserts that social, political and legal factors should have central roles in understanding the development of FOI in China. The book uses information flow analysis to find that FOI reform in China formed part of a much longer process of increased transparency in the Chinese information environment, which gradually shifted from the acceptance of proactive disclosure to that of reactive disclosure. FOI thus has become a beneficiary of this gradual transformation of the Chinese information environment.

Bio-Privacy: Privacy Regulations and the Challenge of Biometrics provides an in-depth consideration of the legal issues posed by the use of biometric technology. Focusing particularly on the relationship between the use of this technology and the protection of privacy, this book draws on material across a range of jurisdictions in order to explore several key questions. What are the privacy issues in the biometric context? How are these issues currently dealt with under the law? What principles are applied? Is the current regulation satisfactory? Is it applied consistently? And, more generally, what is the most appropriate way to deal with the legal implications of biometrics? Offering an analysis, and recommendations, with a view to securing adequate human rights and personal data protection, Bio-Privacy: Privacy Regulations and the Challenge of Biometrics will be an important reference point for those with interests in the tension between freedom and security.

Making Anti-Racial Discrimination Law examines the evolution of anti-racial discrimination law from a socio-legal perspective. Taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the book does not simply look at race and society or race and law but brings these areas together by drawing out the tension in the process, in different countries, by which race becomes a policy issue which is subsequently regulated by law. Moving beyond traditional social movement theory to include the extreme right wing as a social actor, the study identifies the role of extreme right wing confrontation in agenda setting and law-making, a feature often neglected in studies of social action. In so doing, it identifies the influence of both the extreme right and liberalism on anti-racial discrimination law. Focusing primarily on Great Britain and Germany, the book also demonstrates how national politics feeds into EU policy and identifies some of the challenges in creating a high and uniform level of protection against racial discrimination throughout the EU.

Using primary archival materials from Germany and the UK, the empirical richness of this book constitutes a valuable contribution to the field of anti-racial discrimination law, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. The book will interest specialists and academics in law, sociology and political science as well as non-specialists, who will find this study stimulating and useful to expand their knowledge of anti-racial discrimination law or pursue teaching goals, policy objectives and reform agendas.

In recent years, the UN Human Rights Council has approved the 'Respect, Protect, and Remedy' Framework and endorsed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These developments have been welcomed widely, but do they adequately address the challenges concerning the human rights obligations of business? This volume of essays engages critically with these important developments. The chapters revolve around four key issues: the process and methodology adopted in arriving at these documents; the source and justification of corporate human rights obligations; the nature and extent of such obligations; and the implementation and enforcement thereof. In addition to highlighting several critical deficits in these documents, the contributing authors also outline a vision for the twenty-first century in which companies have obligations to society that go beyond the responsibility to respect human rights.

Human rights seemingly offer universal protection. However, irregular migrants have, at best, only problematic access to human rights. Whether understood as an ethical injunction or legally codified norm, the promised protection of human rights seems to break down when it comes to the lived experience of irregular migrants. This book therefore asks three key questions of great practical and theoretical importance. First, what do we mean when we speak of human rights? Second, is the problematic access of irregular migrants to human rights protection an issue of implementation, or is it due to the inherent characteristics of the concept of human rights? Third, should we look beyond human rights for an effective source of protection? Written is an accessible style, with a range of socio-legal and doctrinal approaches, the chapters focus on the situation of the irregular migrant in Europe and the United States. Throughout the book, nuanced theoretical debates are put in the context of concrete case studies. The critical reflections it offers on the limitations and possibilities of human rights protections for irregular migrants will be invaluable for students, scholars and practitioners.

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 presents the argument that health has special moral importance because of the disadvantage one suffers when subjected to impairment or disabling barriers. Christopher A. Riddle asserts that ill health and the presence of disabling barriers are human rights issues and that we require a foundational conception of justice in order to promote the rights of people with disabilities. The claim that disability is a human rights issue is defended on the grounds that people with disabilities experience violations to their dignity, equality, and autonomy. Because human rights exist as a subset of other justice-based rights, Riddle contends that we must support a foundation of justice compatible with endorsing these three principles (equality, dignity, and autonomy). This volume argues that the "capabilities approach" is the best currency of justice for removing the disabling barriers that consistently violate approximately one billion people's human rights.