This is the very first edited collection on International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the oldest of the UN international human rights treaties. It draws together a range of commentators including current or former members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), along with academic and other experts, to discuss the meaning and relevance of the treaty on its fiftieth anniversary. The contributions examine the shift from a narrow understanding of racial discrimination in the 1960s, premised on countering colonialism and apartheid, to a wider meaning today drawing in a range of groups such as minorities, indigenous peoples, caste groups, and Afro-descendants. In its unique combination of CERD and expert analysis, the collection acts as an essential guide to the international understanding of racial discrimination and the pathway towards its elimination. -- .

Over the last few years, questions of religious freedom and the rights of religious minorities in South Asia have rarely been out of the international headlines. The position of Muslims in an increasingly nationalist India, the impact of Islamic blasphemy laws in Pakistan, the intensifying clash between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, attacks on the Muslim Rohingyas of Myanmar, tensions between Buddhists, Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka, the struggle between Islam and secularism in Bangladesh: in all of these fields, as difficulties grow, there is an ever-increasing need to understand the history and genesis of the current problems. This volume, based on a conference held at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars in Washington DC, in collaboration with the Royal Society for Asian Affairs in London, brings together a number of chapters written by a host of leading international scholars and policy experts. These chapters go back to the origins of national constitutions and fundamental laws, tracing their impact to the present. They explain how and why questions of state intention and ideology that were passed over during the crafting of these countries' constitutions have returned to haunt South Asia with greater urgency and consequence. This book was originally published as special issue of the journal Asian Affairs.

The EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) was established to provide evidence-based policy advice to EU institutions and Member States. By blending social science research with traditional normative work, it aims to influence human rights policy processes through new ways of framing empirical realities. The contributors to this volume critically examine the experience of the Agency in its first decade, exploring FRA's historical, political and legal foundations and its evolving record across major strands of EU fundamental rights. Central themes arising from these chapters include consideration of how the Agency manages the tension between a mandate to advise and the more traditional approach of human rights bodies to 'monitor', and how its research impacts the delicate equilibrium between these two contesting roles. FRA's experience as the first 'embedded' human rights agency is also highlighted, suggesting a role for alternative and less oppositional orientations for human rights research. While authors observe the benefits of the technocratic approach to human rights research that is a hallmark of FRA's evidence-based policy advice, they also note its constraints. FRA's policy work requires a continued awareness of political realities in Brussels, Member States, and civil society. Consequently, the complex process of determining the Agency's research agenda reflects the strategic priorities of key actors. This is an important factor in the Agency's role in the EU human rights landscape. This pioneering position of the Agency should invite reflection on new forms of institutionalized human rights research for the future.

Compared with other subdisciplines in Chinese linguistics, children's language acquisition is a significant field with relatively limited achievements. Based on data from a dynamic and developmental corpus, this book is a comprehensive exploration of the early development of Chinese-speaking children's language acquisition. Anchoring the discussions regarding phonetics, semantics and aspects of syntax in a cognitive and functional framework, the author conducts an in-depth analysis of many acquisition characteristics, such as the inevitable and incidental errors of their learning of initials; their ability to obtain the concept of time at a young age and the utilization of Le in the expression of the past tense; their understanding of subjectivity at a young age and the ability to express it; their learning of the degree of modality following the order of from probability to necessity; and children's acquisition of syntactic structures being impacted by genetics and also affected by the steps involved in syntactic processing. Although genetics, cognition and experience all play a role in children's language acquisition, this book focuses on the role of cognitive functions. By successfully explaining the acquisition rules based on some cutting-edge linguistic theories, the book will certainly be beneficial to scholars studying linguistics, psychology, cognitive science and early childhood educators.

This book presents the findings of the first comprehensive study on the most recent and most unique and innovative method of monitoring international human rights law at the United Nations. Since its existence, there has yet to be a complete and comprehensive book solely dedicated to exploring the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. Women and International Human Rights Law provides a much-needed insight to what the process is, how it operates in practice, and whether it meets its fundamental aim of promoting the universality of all human rights. The book addresses the topics with regard to international human rights law and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students interested in the monitoring and implementation of international human rights law at the United Nations. In addition, it will form supplementary reading for those students studying international human rights law on undergraduate programmes and will also appeal to academics and students with interests in political sciences and international relations.

In this ground-breaking collection of essays, the editors and authors develop the idea of Linguistic Citizenship. This notion highlights the importance of practices whereby vulnerable speakers themselves exercise control over their languages, and draws attention to the ways in which alternative voices can be inserted into processes and structures that otherwise alienate those they were designed to support. The chapters discuss issues of decoloniality and multilingualism in the global South, and together retheorize how to accommodate diversity in complexly multilingual/ multicultural societies. Offering a framework anchored in transformative notions of democratic and reflexive citizenship, it prompts readers to critically rethink how existing contemporary frameworks such as Linguistic Human Rights rest on disempowering forms of multilingualism that channel discourses of diversity into specific predetermined cultural and linguistic identities.

This book provides a critical history of influential women in the United Nations and seeks to inspire empowerment with role models from bygone eras. The women whose voices this book presents helped shape UN conventions, declarations, and policies with relevance to the international human rights of women throughout the world today. From the founding of the UN up until the Latin American feminist movements that pushed for gender equality in the UN Charter, and the Security Council Resolutions on the role of women in peace and conflict, the volume reflects on how women delegates from different parts of the world have negotiated and disagreed on human rights issues related to gender within the UN throughout time. In doing so it sheds new light on how these hidden historical narratives enrich theoretical studies in international relations and global agency today. In view of contemporary feminist and postmodern critiques of the origin of human rights, uncovering women's history of the United Nations from both Southern and Western perspectives allows us to consider questions of feminism and agency in international relations afresh. With contributions from leading scholars and practitioners of law, diplomacy, history, and development studies, and brought together by a theoretical commentary by the Editors, Women and the UN will appeal to anyone whose research covers human rights, gender equality, international development, or the history of civil society. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003036708, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book explores developments in international law regarding the relationship between human rights law and international humanitarian law and their coapplicability in armed conflict situations. The work examines the jurisprudence of the international human rights courts and looks at the Inter-American and European Courts of Human Rights case law in dealing with new emergencies in armed conflicts. It argues that a new interpretation and application of the law is required to deal with current needs while remaining faithful to moral commitments made in the international arena. In this way, the book deals with recent cases and their rationale to build a new understanding of law and international policy that complies with the globalization process and progress towards an enhancement of the international community's legal framework. Combining the emergencies in armed conflicts with the mutual enforcement of human rights law and humanitarian law, this book holistically develops concepts and theories to present a pragmatic solution to moral quandaries over the targeting of civilians during armed conflict situations. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy-makers in the areas of international human rights and international humanitarian law.

This volume presents a systematic collection of the various international legal sources that define the rights of religious minorities. In a time of increasing tensions around religious minorities, this volume presents a systematic collection of international and European documents on the protection and promotion of religious minorities' rights. The code includes documents from the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union. An index system connects the various sources and norms, and emphasizes the strengths and the weaknesses in the legal frameworks of international and European institutions. While allowing for further research on the historical and conceptual development in the area, the code provides the reader with a new, easily accessible tool facilitating experts and actors who wish to improve the knowledge and protection of religious minorities. This book will be an invaluable resource for students, academics and researchers interested in law and religion, international law, public law and human rights law, the code is also a powerful tool for minorities themselves, and for advocates of their rights.

The law is a well-known tool in fighting gender inequality, but which laws actually advance women's rights? This book unpacks the complex nuances behind gender-responsive domestic legislation, from several of the world's leading experts on gender equality. Drawing on domestic examples and international law, it provides a primer of theory alongside tangible and practical solutions to fulfil the promise of the law to deliver equality between men and women. Part I outlines what progress has been made to date on eradicating gender inequality, and insights into the law's potential as one lever in the global struggle for equality. Parts II and III go on to explore concrete areas of law, with case studies from multiple jurisdictions that examine how well domestic legislation is working for women. The authors bring their critical lens to areas of law often considered from a gender perspective - gender-based violence, women's reproductive health, labour and gender equality quotas - while bringing much-needed analysis to issues often ignored in gender debates, such as taxation, environmental justice and good governance. Part IV seeks to move from a theoretical goal of greater accountability to a practical one. It explores both accountability for international women's rights norms at the domestic level and the potential of feminist approaches to legislation to deliver laws that work for women. Written for students, academics, legislators and policymakers engaged in international women's rights law, gender equality, government accountability and feminist legal theory, this book has tremendous transformative potential to drive forward legal change towards the eradication of gender inequality.

Human Rights in ASEAN: Indonesian and International Perspectives is a collection of 13 essays that not only offers fresh new insights on the different facets of human rights and their protection in ASEAN, but also 'insider' accounts of the development of the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission for Human Rights. These valuable perspectives have never been shared publicly, and offer a view from both the state and non-governmental organisations' (NGO) perspectives. In addition to these valuable perspectives, this book offers a number of significant case studies of how human rights has been implemented, and the challenges it faces in ASEAN in general, and in Indonesia particularly.

fills a gap in the literature on statebuilding after the conflict in Kosovo - analyses the nature and impact of the various justice mechanisms employed to date in Kosovo to determine their effects, and their broader international significance - all the contributors are experts on Kosovo, with half being from the state and all having worked there

Gypsies and Travellers have often been overlooked as victims of hate crime and discrimination. This book redresses that exclusion by shining a light on the harms of hate experienced by Gypsies and Travellers in the UK. In doing so James explores how hate permeates all aspects of their lives and identifies the hate crimes, incidents, and speech that they are subject to. It goes on to explore how hate against Gypsies and Travellers occurs as discrimination, social exclusion and criminalisation and how that hate is embedded within the language and practice of neoliberal capitalism. This book provides new insights to critical criminology and ways of understanding hate by using the critical hate studies perspective to gain a full appreciation of the harms of hate. As a consequence of this, the book is able to do justice to Gypsies' and Travellers' experiences of hate by extrapolating how harms manifest and the impact they have on Gypsies’ and Travellers’ social and personal identities. The book explains and acknowledges how hate harms imbue Gypsies' and Travellers' daily lives, including common events of serious abuse and assault, regular ill-treatment in provision of services, and everyday micro-aggressions. It argues hate experienced by Gypsies and Travellers can only be fully recognised through an analysis of the neoliberal capitalist context within which it occurs and the harmful subjective experience it engenders. The author’s expertise in this area, having carried out research with Gypsies and Travellers for 25 years, underpins the book with excellent empirical knowledge and research-informed discussion.

Reforms in Myanmar (formerly Burma) have eased restrictions on citizens' political activities. Yet for most Burmese, Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung shows, eking out a living from day to day leaves little time for civic engagement. Citizens have coped with extreme hardship through great resourcefulness. But by making bad situations more tolerable in the short term, these coping strategies may hinder the emergence of the democratic values needed to sustain the country's transition to a more open political environment. Thawnghmung conducted in-depth interviews and surveys of 372 individuals from all walks of life and across geographical locations in Myanmar between 2008 and 2015. To frame her analysis, she provides context from countries with comparable political and economic situations. Her findings will be welcomed by political scientists and policy analysts, as well by journalists and humanitarian activists looking for substantive, reliable information about everyday life in a country that remains largely in the shadows.

The law governing the relationship between speech and core international crimes - a key component in atrocity prevention - is broken. Incitement to genocide has not been adequately defined. The law on hate speech as persecution is split between the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Instigation is confused with incitement and ordering's scope is too circumscribed. At the same time, each of these modalities does not function properly in relation to the others, yielding a misshapen body of law riddled with gaps. Existing scholarship has suggested discrete fixes to individual parts, but no work has stepped back and considered holistic solutions. This book does. To understand how the law became so fragmented, it returns to its roots to explain how it was formulated. From there, it proposes a set of nostrums to deal with the individual deficiencies. Its analysis then culminates in a more comprehensive proposal: a Unified Liability Theory, which would systematically link the core crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes with the four illicit speech modalities. The latter would be placed in one statutory provision criminalizing the following types of speech: (1) incitement (speech seeking but not resulting in atrocity); (2) speech abetting (non-catalytic speech synchronous with atrocity commission); (3) instigation (speech seeking and resulting in atrocity); and (4) ordering (instigation/incitement within a superior-subordinate relationship). Apart from its fragmentation, this body of law lacks a proper name as Incitement Law or International Hate Speech Law, labels often used, fail to capture its breadth or relationship to mass violence. So this book proposes a new and fitting appellation: atrocity speech law.

This book is the first to offer an in-depth analysis of transitional justice as an unfinished agenda in Indonesia's democracy. Examining the implementation of transitional justice measures in post-authoritarian Indonesia, this book analyses the factors within the democratic transition that either facilitated or hindered the adoption and implementation of transitional justice measures. Furthermore, it contributes key insights from an extensive examination of 'bottom-up' approaches to transitional justice in Indonesia: through a range of case studies, civil society-led initiatives to truth-seeking and local reconciliation efforts. Based on extensive archival, legal and media research, as well as interviews with key actors in Indonesia's democracy and human rights' institutions, the book provides a significant contribution to current understandings of Indonesia's democracy. Its analysis of the failure of state-centred transitional justice measures, and the role of civil society, also makes an important addition to comparative transitional justice studies. It will be of considerable interest to scholars and activists in the fields of Transitional Justice and Politics, as well as in Asian Studies.

International organizations (IOs) that focus on refugees are finding themselves spread increasingly thin. As the scale of displacement reaches historic levels-protracted refugee situations now average 26 years-organizations are staying for years on end, often working well beyond their original mandates. In some cases, IOs may even act as a substitute for the state. This book considers the conditions under which surrogacy occurs and what it means for the organization's influence on the state. It looks specifically at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as a surrogate state in protracted refugee situations in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Drawing on international relations literature and empirical studies of UNHCR, Miller asks how and when UNHCR takes on surrogacy, and what effect this has on its ability to influence how a host state treats refugees. The book develops a framework for understanding IOs at the domestic level and presents a counterintuitive finding: IO surrogacy actually leads to less influence on the state. In other words, where UNHCR behaves like a state, it is less able to influence a host state's refugee policies. UNHCR provides an excellent example of an IO working on multiple levels, making this book of great interest to practitioners and policymakers working on refugee-related issues, and scholars of forced migration, international relations, international organizations, and UNHCR.

Providing a contemporary history of the Palestinian prisoners movement, this book illustrates the centrality of the movement in the broader Palestinian national struggle. Based on direct interviews with former prisoners and former security sector personnel, it offers new insights into the strategies that prisoners employed to gain rights over time, as well as the tactics used by prison authorities to maintain control. Prisons have functioned as microcosms of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, with the Israeli state aiming to use mass incarceration for security, and Palestinian prisoners seeking to take back the prison space for organizing and resistance. Prisoners' actions included but were not limited to hunger strikes, as prisoners often relied more on everyday acts of noncompliance and developing an internal "counterorder" to challenge authorities. The volume demonstrates how the Palestinian prisoners movement was intertwined with the Palestinian national movement, strongest in the popular mobilization era of the 1970s and 1980s, and significantly weaker and more fragmented after the Oslo Accords of the 1990s and the second intifada. Presenting a fresh analysis of a central, but often overlooked aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the volume offers valuable reflections on prison-based resistance in protracted conflicts more broadly. It is a key resource to students and scholars interested in contemporary conversations on mass incarceration, criminal justice, Middle East politics and history.

Peremptory International Legal Norms and the Democratic Rule of Law explores the risks to the democratic State inherent in the attempt to divorce the notion of democratic rule of law from respect for and adherence to peremptory international legal norms which allow for no derogation therefrom such as the prohibition of torture and inhumane treatment or punishment by the State. The chapters address, with specific current case examples, in what ways the democratic rule of law within certain democratic States risks being undermined through those States acquiescing to the erosion of peremptory international law norms in the domestic and international context. The book therefore explores the question of in what ways such democratic State acquiescence in effect may ultimately disrupt the investment within the State in the shared culture of core human rights values that underlies democratic rule of law itself and highlights the fragility of that shared culture. The contributors argue for a renewed commitment in principle and practice to the democratic rule of law and to its human rights international normative underpinnings. Peremptory International Legal Norms and the Democratic Rule of Law will be of great interest to scholars of international law, human rights and democracy. The chapters originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of Human Rights.

Analysing how Indigenous Peoples come to be identifiable as bearers of human rights, this book considers how individuals and communities claim the right of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) as Indigenous peoples. The basic notion of FPIC is that states should seek Indigenous peoples' consent before taking actions that will have an impact on them, their territories or their livelihoods. FPIC is an important development for Indigenous peoples, their advocates and supporters because one might assume that, where states recognize it, Indigenous peoples will have the ability to control how non-Indigenous laws and actions will affect them. But who exactly are the Indigenous peoples that are the subjects of this discourse? This book argues that the subject status of Indigenous peoples emerged out of international law in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then, through a series of case studies, it considers how self-identifying Indigenous peoples, scholars, UN institutions and non-government organizations (NGOs) dispersed that subject-status and associated rights discourse through international and national legal contexts. It shows that those who claim international human rights as Indigenous peoples performatively become identifiable subjects of international law - but further demonstrates that this does not, however, provide them with control over, or emancipation from, a state-based legal system. Maintaining that the discourse on Indigenous peoples and international law itself needs to be theoretically and critically re-appraised, this book problematises the subject-status of those who claim Indigenous peoples' rights and the role of scholars, institutions, NGOs and others in producing that subject-status. Squarely addressing the limitations of international human rights law, it nevertheless goes on to provide a conceptual framework for rethinking the promise and power of Indigenous peoples' rights. Original and sophisticated, the book will appeal to scholars, activists and lawyers involved with indigenous rights, as well as those with more general interests in the operation of international law.

Reflections on Life in Ghettos, Camps and Prisons explores the relationship between ghettos, camps, places of detention and prisons with a focus on those people who are confined, encamped, imprisoned, detained, stuck, or forcibly removed through the lens of 'stuckness'. From a point of departure in anthropology, with important contributions from criminology, geography and philosophy, the chapters explore how life is lived in and across these sites of confinement by focusing on the tactics of everyday life, while being mindful of how forms of abjection are constitutive elements of these sites. Stuckness, from this inter-disciplinary perspective, is not simply a function of the spatial form it takes; we need to understand how temporality animates stuckness as an important dimension of confinement. Death, the ultimate temporal boundary, emerges as particularly significant in this regard. With case studies from Palestine, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Northern Australia, Rwanda, Ivory Coast and Nicaragua, the contributors focus on the empirical question of how structures of stuckness, confinement and forced mobility impact on the possibilities of 'making life'. Suggesting new ways of thinking about how temporality and spatiality intersect and overlap in the lives of people struggling to manage conditions of stuckness, Reflections on Life in Ghettos, Camps and Prisons will be of great interest to scholars of anthropology, geography, criminology and philosophy. The chapters in this book originally published as a special issue of Ethnos.

This book charts the development of forensic anthropology teams in Latin America and surveys their main characteristics, achievements, and challenges in light of a recent past fraught with state repression and violence. The volume contains contributions by an interdisciplinary group of scholars from several Latin American universities, with chapters on Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Guatemala, and Mexico. These countries' shared legacy is a host of human rights violations that continue to have an impact on present day society. Following the move towards democracy and a public demand for truth and justice, the volume highlights the role of forensic anthropology teams and their contribution as a source of information for the historical narrative, as a legal asset in enforcing the right to truth, and in achieving reparation for victims. This collection will be of interest to scholars from Anthropology, Latin American Studies, Politics, and History.

A comprehensive analysis of contemporary indigenous rights

This volume presents an integrated collection of essays around the theme of India's failure to grapple with the big questions of human rights protections affecting marginalized minority groups in the country's recent rush to modernization. The book traverses a broad range of rights violations from: gender equality to sexual orientation, from judicial review of national security law to national security concerns, from water rights to forest rights of those in need, and from the persecution of Muslims in Gulberg to India's parallel legal system of Lok Adalats to resolve disputes. It calls into question India's claim to be a contemporary liberal democracy. The thesis is given added strength by the authors' diverse perspectives which ultimately create a synergy that stimulates the thinking of the entire field of human rights, but in the context of a non-western country, thereby prompting many specialists in human rights to think in new ways about their research and the direction of the field, both in India and beyond. In an area that has been under-researched, the work will provide valuable guidance for new research ideas, experimental designs and analyses in key cutting-edge issues covered in this work, such as acid attacks or the right to protest against the 'nuclear' state in India.

Applying a legal pluralist framework, this study examines the complex interrelationships between religion, law and politics in contemporary Ghana, a professedly secular State characterised by high levels of religiosity. It aims to explore legal, cultural and moral tensions created by overlapping loci of authority (state actors, traditional leaders and religious functionaries). It contends that religion can function as an impediment to Ghana's secularity and also serve as an integral tool for realising the State's legal ideals and meeting international human rights standards. Using three case studies - legal tensions, child witchcraft accusations and same-sex partnerships - the study illustrates the ways that the entangled and complicated connections between religion and law compound Ghana's secular orientation. It suggests that legal pluralism is not a mere analytical framework for describing tensions, but ought to be seen as part of the solution. The study contributes to advancing knowledge in the area of the interrelationships between religion and law in contemporary African public domain. This book will be a valuable resource for those working in the areas of Law and Religion, Religious Studies, African Studies, Political Science, Legal Anthropology and Socio-legal Studies.