"This book makes important contributions to Women's Studies and Speech Communication and deserves our critical attention."--"Women's Studies in Communication"

Many of us have grown up with the language of civil rights, yet rarely consider how the construction of civil rights claims affects those who are trying to attain them. Diane Miller examines arguments lesbians and gay men make for civil rights, revealing the ways these arguments are both progressive--in terms of helping to win court cases seeking basic human rights--and limiting--in terms of framing representations of gay men and lesbians.

Miller incorporates case studies of lesbians in the military and in politics into her argument. She discusses in detail the experiences of Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, who was dishonorably discharged from the National Guard after 27 years of service when she revealed that she was a lesbian, and Roberta Achtenberg, who was nominated by Clinton for the job of Assistant Director of Housing and Urban Development and became the first gay or lesbian to face the confirmation process. Drawing on these cases and their outcomes, Miller evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of privileging civil rights strategies in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights.

This volume is a new chapter in the future history of law. Its general perspective could not be more original and its critical ethical edge on the state of international law could not be timelier. It explores a compassionate philosophical approach to the genuine substance of law, criminal procedure, international criminal law and international criminal justice. It divides law into three interrelated disciplines, i.e. legality, morality and love. The norm love is derived from human reason for man's advancement and the securing of natural law. It is more than a mere mandatory norm. Its goal is to generate a normative and positive, powerful result, therefore avoiding any impurity that may exist in the application of other norms because of political or juridical pressures - a one-eyed justice. The norm love also renders justice with the principles of legal accountability, transparency and the high moral, authentic values of humanity. The notion of justice cannot be trusted in the absence of the norm love. The volume indicates the conditions of its efficiency by proving the reasons for its existence in the context of fairness, objectivity and concern for all individuals and entities. The concept of the norm love should be the core academic corpus for lecturing law in all faculties of law. It is simply the enlightenment of the 21st century. A lawyer with requisite knowledge and skill is not a lawyer if he cannot understand that the law does not need a lawyer with ethical competence in its provisions for income purposes but one with knowledge of its essence for the advanced morality of justice and the sheer essence of love for justice.

The social security of a person in the modern world can only be ensured by a purposeful policy and actions of the state and society aimed at achieving it. This requires favorable socio-economic conditions and creating an effective personal security system protecting property and citizens. Human social security can be threatened by phenomena and processes that lead to drastic changes in the life of society and dangerous deformations that entail severe social consequences for the individual, social groups, and institutions. Regulating Human Rights, Social Security, and Socio-Economic Structures in a Global Perspective discusses the global regulation of human rights, social security, and socio-economic structures in an era of acute challenges and crises. It presents comprehensive research on political structures and the conflicts within causing challenges to individual identity and insecurity. Covering topics such as legal-socio studies, digital authoritarianism, and regional security, this premier reference source is an essential resource for government officials, politicians, geopolitical experts, economists, non-profit organizations, human rights advocates, libraries, students, researchers, and academicians.

This book analyses Chile's "truth and justice" policies implemented between 1990 and 2013. The book's central assumption is that human rights policies are a form of public policy and consequently they are the product of compromises among different political actors. Because of their political nature, these incomplete "truth and justice" policies instead of satisfying the victims' demands and providing a mechanism for closure and reconciliation generate new demands and new policies and actions. However, these new policies and actions are partially satisfactory to those pursuing justice and the truth and unacceptable to those trying to protect the impunity structure built by General Pinochet and his supporters. Thus, while the 40th anniversary of the violent military coup that brought General Pinochet to power serves as a milestone with which to end this policy analysis, Chile's human rights historical drama is unfinished and likely to generate new demands for truth and justice policies.

It is an undeniable fact that corporations participate in human rights abuses throughout the world. Yet there is disagreement among scholars, politicians and business actors about the best approaches to preventing and responding to those abuses and whether it would be feasible to adopt a treaty on the matter.This book explores the potential adoption of a treaty on business and human rights, first proposed by Ecuador and South Africa. Would such a treaty be practicable and what should its content be - should it regulate direct corporate obligations or extraterritorial obligations? How can experiences of other international legal regimes and developments in regional systems inform the global debate on business and human rights?The Future of Business and Human Rights informs the reader - academics, practitioners and policy makers - about the current debate that is at centre of legal and diplomatic discussion.

Is everything good in Christianity plagiarized from traditional African religions? What about criticisms of Christianity made by the Nation of Islam? Craig S. Keener and Glenn Usry answer these and other hard questions put to the black church. Craig Keener and Glenn Usry's highly acclaimed Black Man's Religion showed in impressive detail that Christianity and Afrocentricity can go together. Now they turn to specific, nitty-gritty questions put to the black church by non-Christians: Is everything good in Christianity plagiarized from traditional African religions? Isn't it intolerant to say Christ is the only way to God? Is the Bible reliable? What about criticisms of Christianity made by the Nation of Islam? Keener and Usry meet these and other important questions head-on, providing responses relevant to and especially for black men and women.

Amnesty laws are political tools used since ancient times by states wishing to quell dissent, introduce reforms, or achieve peaceful relationships with their enemies. In recent years, they have become contentious due to a perception that they violate international law, particularly the rights of victims, and contribute to further violence. This view is disputed by political negotiators who often argue that amnesty is a necessary price to pay in order to achieve a stable, peaceful, and equitable system of government. This book aims to investigate whether an amnesty necessarily entails a violation of a state's international obligations, or whether an amnesty, accompanied by alternative justice mechanisms, can in fact contribute positively to both peace and justice. This study began by constructing an extensive Amnesty Law Database that contains information on 506 amnesty processes in 130 countries introduced since the Second World War. The database and chapter structure were designed to correspond with the key aspects of an amnesty: why it was introduced, who benefited from its protection, which crimes it covered, and whether it was conditional. In assessing conditional amnesties, related transitional justice processes such as selective prosecutions, truth commissions, community-based justice mechanisms, lustration, and reparations programmes were considered. Subsequently, the jurisprudence relating to amnesty from national courts, international tribunals, and courts in third states was addressed. The information gathered revealed considerable disparity in state practice relating to amnesties, with some aiming to provide victims with a remedy, and others seeking to create complete impunity for perpetrators. To date, few legal trends relating to amnesty laws are emerging, although it appears that amnesties offering blanket, unconditional immunity for state agents have declined. Overall, amnesties have increased in popularity since the 1990s and consequently, rather than trying to dissuade states from using this tool of transitional justice, this book argues that international actors should instead work to limit the more negative forms of amnesty by encouraging states to make them conditional and to introduce complementary programmes to repair the harm and prevent a repetition of the crimes. David Dyzenhaus "This is one of the best accounts in the truth and reconciliation literature I've read and certainly the best piece of work on amnesty I've seen." Diane Orentlicher "Ms Mallinder's ambitious project provides the kind of empirical treatment that those of us who have worked on the issue of amnesties in international law have long awaited. I have no doubt that her book will be a much-valued and widely-cited resource."

This book discusses the multilayered legal structures concerning the regulation of crimes under international law. It covers both core crimes and other types of crime under international law, and examines relevant substantive and procedural rules alike. Pursuing such a comprehensive approach is essential to understanding the basic frameworks of international criminal law, since the varied perspectives on international crimes are connected to different systems of enforcement. Being aware of this interrelatedness is conducive to an in-depth examination of individual topics in both substantive and procedural aspects. On the basis of such an inquiry, this book concisely provides a systematic overview of international criminal law.

This book offers a legal and socio-political analysis of the Brazilian Program for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders. Discussing Colombian, Guatemalan and Mexican experiences, it fills a gap in the literature regarding Latin American public policy by investigating the creation, work, beneficiaries, broader effects, challenges, and effective ways to improve the Brazilian Program.

This book addresses the legal feasibility of ethnic data collection and positive action for equality and anti-discrimination purposes, and considers how they could be used to promote the Roma minority's inclusion in Europe. The book's central aim is to research how a societal problem can be improved upon from a legal perspective. The controversy surrounding ethnic data collection and positive action severely limits their use at the national level. Accordingly, legal and political concerns are analysed and addressed in order to demonstrate that it is possible to collect such data and to implement such measures while fully respecting international and European human rights norms, provided that certain conditions are met. Part I focuses on ethnic data collection and explores the key rules and principles that govern it, the ways in which this equality tool could be used, and how potential obstacles might be overcome. It also identifies and addresses the specific challenges that arise when collecting ethnic data on the Roma minority in Europe. In turn, Part II explores positive action and the broad range of measures covered by the concept, before analysing the applicable international and European framework. It reviews the benefits and challenges of implementing positive action for Roma, identifies best practices, and gives special consideration to inter-cultural mediation in the advancement of Roma inclusion. The book concludes with an overview of the main findings on both topics and by identifying three essential elements that must be in place, in addition to full respect for the applicable legal rules, in order to combat discrimination and achieve the inclusion of Roma in Europe by complementing existing anti-discrimination frameworks with the collection of ethnic data and the implementation of positive action schemes.

Violence, deception, fraud and abuse have always been commonplace occurrences for migrants, not only in their final country of destination but also in their countries of origin and countries of transit. In today's world, the link between mobility and security issues is ever-increasing. Acknowledging this, how can we work to protect and improve migrants' rights? Is the protection for migrants offered by the EU sufficient as-is, or is a more integrated approach that requires greater cooperation from migrants' country of origin called for? What role can the private sector play in all of this? In this book, Borraccetti brings together contributions that analyse how migrant exploitation can be combatted. All essays focus on the protection and promotion of human rights and pay particular attention to the rights of children and other vulnerable people.

After decades of scholarship on the civil rights movement at the local level, the insights of bottom-up movement history remain essentially invisible in the accepted narrative of the movement and peripheral to debates on how to research, document, and teach about the movement. This collection of original works refocuses attention on this bottom-up history and compels a rethinking of what and who we think is central to the movement.

The essays examine such locales as Sunflower County, Mississippi; Memphis, Tennessee; and Wilson, North Carolina; and engage such issues as nonviolence and self-defense, the implications of focusing on women in the movement, and struggles for freedom beyond voting rights and school desegregation. Events and incidents discussed range from the movement's heyday to the present and include the Poor People's Campaign mule train to Washington, D.C., the popular response to the deaths of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, and political cartoons addressing Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

The kinds of scholarship represented here--which draw on oral history and activist insights (along with traditional sources) and which bring the specificity of time and place into dialogue with broad themes and a national context--are crucial as we continue to foster scholarly debates, evaluate newer conceptual frameworks, and replace the superficial narrative that persists in the popular imagination.

The international protection regime for refugees and other forced migrants seems increasingly at risk as measures designed to enhance security-of borders, of people, of institutions, and of national identity-encroach upon human rights. This timely edited collection responds to some of the contemporary challenges faced by the international protection regime, with a particular focus on the human rights of those displaced. The book begins by assessing the impact of anti-terrorism laws on refugee status, both at the international and domestic levels, before turning to examine the function of offshore immigration control mechanisms and extraterritorial processing on asylum seekers' access to territory and entitlements (both procedural and substantive). It considers the particular needs and rights of children as forced migrants, but also as children; the role of human rights law in protecting religious minorities in the context of debates about national identity; the approaches of refugee decision-makers in assessing the credibility of evidence; and the scope for an international judicial commission to provide consistent interpretative guidance on refugee law, so as to overcome (or at least diminish) the currently diverse and sometimes conflicting approaches of national courts. The last part of the book examines the status of people who benefit from 'complementary protection'-such as those who cannot be removed from a country because they face a risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment-and the scope for the broader concept of the 'responsibility to protect' to address gaps in the international protection regime.

This book provides an innovative outlook of the various challenges of international law in the Asian region. Moving away from the Eurocentrism prevalent in the literature on the subject, it provides a comprehensive Asian perspective without adopting a monolithic or homogeneous Asian approach. Although Asian countries converge on certain issues related to international law, such as engagement with the United Nations, at times, there is a significant divergence, such as in the case of agricultural trade liberalisation. Given the vastness of the region and the differing political systems, there are many discrepancies to consider. The book takes into account the viewpoint of civil society so as to avoid a vertical state-centred approach. Offering an easy-to-understand presentation of key issues concerning the region, this book is a useful introduction to this complex topic for students, academics and practitioners of international law.

How Do I Save My Honor? is a powerful exploration of individual moral responsibility in a time of war. When people decide that the actions of their government have violated basic norms of ethics and justice, what are they to do? Are there degrees of moral responsibility that public officials, soldiers, and private citizens bear for unethical actions of their leaders and government? William F. Felice considers these central ethical questions through the compelling stories of individuals in the U.S. and British government and military who struggled to protect their moral integrity during the Iraq war and occupation. Some came to the difficult conclusion that resignation from their post was necessary to maintain their responsibility to the truth and to uphold their honor. Others decided to work from within to try to correct what they perceived as misguided policies. Examining the struggles of these contemporary men and women, as well as of historical figures facing similar dilemmas, William Felice weighs the profound difficulties of overcoming the intense pressures of misguided loyalty, patriotism, and groupthink that predominate during war.

This book examines the global campaign to end hunger and malnutrition. Focus is placed on the work of the United Nations which has led international efforts to improve food security in the world's poorest countries. The book first reviews the long-term project to establish access to safe, sufficient, and nutritious food as a universally recognized human right. This is followed by separate chapters that examine the nature and central causes of food insecurity in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. These chapters also review the contemporary work of three United Nations agencies - the World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization, and International Fund for Agricultural Development - in providing both food aid and food assistance to each region of the developing world. This includes the provision of emergency food aid in response to natural disaster and civil conflict, as well as longer-term food assistance to promote agricultural productivity, advance rural development, and preserve natural environments. The concluding chapter considers ways to strengthen food aid and assistance in the years to come, with many of the recommendations advanced reflecting lessons learned from the actual experience of food aid and assistance described in this book.

In this book I argue for an approach that conceives human rights as both moral and legal rights. The merit of such an approach is its capacity to understand human rights more in terms of the kind of world free and reasonable beings would like to live in rather than simply in terms of what each individual is legally entitled to. While I acknowledge that every human being has the moral entitlement to be granted living conditions that are conducive to a dignified life, I maintain, at the same time, that the moral and legal aspects of human rights are complementary and should be given equal weight. The legal aspect compensates for the limitations of moral human rights the observance of which depends on the conscience of the individual, and the moral aspect tempers the mechanical and inhumane application of the law. Unlike the traditional or orthodox approach, which conceives human rights as rights that individuals have by virtue of their humanity, and the political or practical approach, which understands human rights as legal rights that are meant to limit the sovereignty of the state, the moral-legal approach reconciles law and morality in human rights discourse and underlines the importance of a legal framework that compensates for the deficiencies in the implementation of moral human rights. It not only challenges the exclusively negative approach to fundamental liberties but also emphasizes the necessity of an enforcement mechanism that helps those who are not morally motivated to refrain from violating the rights of others. Without the legal mechanism of enforcement, the understanding of human rights would be reduced to simply framing moral claims against injustices. From the moral-legal approach, the protection of human rights is understood as a common and shared responsibility. Such a responsibility goes beyond the boundaries of nation-states and requires the establishment of a cosmopolitan human rights regime based on the conviction that all human beings are members of a community of fate and that they share common values which transcend the limits of their individual states. In a cosmopolitan human rights regime, people are protected as persons and not as citizens of a particular state.

Vietnam has claimed the Paracel and Spratly Island groups for hundreds of years. China's invasion and capture of the Paracels from South Vietnam in 1974, and its ongoing occupation of the Spratlys, have created increasing opposition and anger not only among Vietnamese citizens but worldwide. This book insists that China's illegal violation of Vietnamese sovereignty rights in the Paracels and Spratlys has included serious human rights violations and decelerated the process of human emancipation. Using both realist and critical theories in a comparative framework, China Moves South states that while realism may offer a reasonable approach to explaining China's behavior, critical theory is a more appropriate lens to challenge China's occupations. Employing critical theory and human rights law as methods of evaluation, this book insists that human rights and international law cannot sustain China's continuing violations as defined by the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Additionally, China Moves South aims to provide government officials, international scholars, students, and other interested parties with a better understanding of Chinese's illegal invasion and capture of the Paracels and Spratlys and, more importantly, to counsel urgent action to resist the Chinese occupation as China becomes more assertive in the vital waters of the South China Sea.

This book examines the practice of transitional justice in the Solomon Islands from the period of the 'The Tensions' to the present. In late 1998, the Solomon Islands were plunged into a period of violent civil conflict precipitated by a complex web of grievances, injustices, ethnic tensions, and economic insecurities. This conflict dragged on until the middle of 2003, leaving an estimated 200 people dead and more than 20 000 displaced from their homes. In the time that has elapsed since the end of The Tensions, numerous-at times incompatible-approaches to transitional justice have been implemented in the Solomon Islands. The contributors to this volume examine how key global trends and debates about transitional justice were played out in the Solomon Islands, how its key mechanisms were adapted to meet the specific demands of post-conflict justice in this local context, and how well its practices and processes fulfilled their perceived functions.

This book explores the human right to housing, presenting the findings of a global discourse analysis to analyse the right to housing from the perspective of theories on land policy and social citizenship. The book concludes that planners and policy makers will not be able to completely fulfil the human right to housing. For that reason, the book presents a theory of de-commodification of land use that highlights the meaning of land use rights for people affected by inadequate housing. Students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including social policy, global social policy, human rights law, discourse theory, and sociology will find this study of interest.

This book takes a distinctive and innovative approach to a relatively under-explored question, namely: Why do we have human rights? Much political discourse simply proceeds from the idea that humans have rights because they are human without seriously interrogating this notion. Egalitarian Rights Recognition offers an account of how human rights are created and how they may be seen to be legitimate: rights are created through social recognition. By combining readings of 19th Century English philosopher T.H. Green with 20th Century political theorist Hannah Arendt, the author constructs a new theory of the social recognition of rights. He challenges both the standard 'natural rights' approach and also the main accounts of the social recognition of rights which tend to portray social recognition as settled norms or established ways of acting. In contrast, Hann puts forward a 10-point account of the dynamic and contingent social recognition of human rights, which emphasises the importance of meaningful socio-economic equality.