Human rights is often claimed as the 'idea' of our time. However, although considerable time, energy and resources have been invested in the idea, and extravagant claims are often made about progress in providing machinery for the protection of human rights, there are few signs that violations are any less common than in the past. This book argues that while the USA was instrumental in establishing the 'idea' of human rights as a dominant theme in the day-to-day rhetoric of international relations, powerful economic and political interests succeeded in ensuring that a strong international regime for the protection of human rights did not emerge.

Republicans have a lot more in common with the ACLU than they think! For decades conservative Republicans have railed against the 'liberal' American Civil Liberties Union and its state affiliates for defending unpopular causes from the rights of 'criminals' to flag burning, pornography, and Nazi marches down Main Street. So what possessed the Indiana CLU to put a card-carrying Republican at its helm? How could anyone who supported George Bush be a civil libertarian? In this fascinating first-hand account, Sheila S. Kennedy explains her amazement at stalwart conservatives who seem to think that being a Republican is utterly incompatible with a firm devotion to civil liberties. In perceptive, humorous, and easy-to-understand anecdotes, Kennedy, a self-described Goldwater Republican, skewers the rampant misrepresentations about civil libertarians, the ACLU, and those who have abandoned the libertarian heart of the GOP. With robust enthusiasm and a fervent conviction that the nation needs a 'Liberty's Lawyer', Kennedy offers her thoughts on: The Great Prayer Wars; The Criminal's Lobby versus Tax and Spend Conservatives; The Gay Nineties and Family Values; Purveyors of Filth at the Local Library; A Day at the Legislature, or Can These People Really Be Representative?; and more.

""Agents of Atrocity" provides an incisive and elegant treatment of the problem of the all too common horrors of mass murder, rape and plunder in military conflict. Using compelling theory combined with careful historical assessments of three civil conflicts (in Israel, Russia and England), Neil Mitchell places the focus squarely on the role of leaders in amplifying or moderating atrocities in armed conflicts. While the richness of the cases themselves is sufficient reason to read this book, the implications for anticipating atrocities and reducing their occurrence make it essential for those who seek to study or practice human rights and security policy."-- Hans Jenkins-Smith, Professor of Public Policy, Texas A&M University
""Agents of Atrocity" is an excellent and important book filling a void in contemporary human rights research. By focusing not only on the decision-makers who are at the head of abusive governments, but also on the agents who physically commit those abuses and the relationship between the two, Mitchell enhances our understanding of the dynamics of carnage. This book should be read by all who wish to understand how and why governments commit such horrific crimes, and steps that can be taken to prevent them."-- Steven C. Poe, University of North Texas
"This is an erudite, literate, fascinating volume. Mitchell explains why political leaders sometimes prevent, sometimes ignore, and sometimes encourage violence, while followers, if not properly controlled, are frequently motivated by rape, loot, and sadism. Mitchell brings the individual back into the study of human rights and shows how in practice, as well as in law, international standards of accountabilitycan moderate political violence. The book is a pleasure to read, and hard to put down." --Rhoda Howard-Hassmann Wilfrid Laurier University

El presente trabajo representa una critica a la postura del Poder Judicial Federal, respecto a la manera en que se ha integrado la jurisprudencia en materia de derecho familiar, al no considerar aspectos trascendentales para decidir la filiacion en un caso controvertido, donde se invoca la utilizacion de la prueba genetica de ADN. Lo anterior, se ha hecho por medio de la comparacion de la jurisprudencia federal y la jurisprudencia de los Estados Unidos de America.

Although international human rights law establishes the individual right to receive reparations, collective reparations have been considered a common response from judicial and non-judicial bodies to reparations for victims of gross violations of human rights. As such, collective reparations have been awarded within the field of international human rights law, international criminal law and transitional justice. Yet the concept, content and scope of collective reparations are rather unspecified. To date, neither the judicial nor the non-judicial bodies that have granted this kind of reparations have ever defined them.This book presents the first study on collective reparations. It aims to shed light on the legal framework, content and scope of collective reparations, and to the relationship between collective reparations and the individual right to reparations. In order to do so, the book analyses specific case law from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Additionally, the practices of non-judicial mechanisms were examined, specifically those of the Peruvian and Moroccan Truth Commissions and of two mass claims compensation commissions (the United Nations Compensation Commission and the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission). Finally, it provides an overview of the challenges that collective reparations present to the fields of international human rights law and international criminal law, including in their implementation.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), author and pioneering feminist, answers Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" in this, her first stirring political pamphlet. In "A Vindication of the Rights of Men" (1790), Wollstonecraft refutes Burke's assertions that human liberties are an "entailed inheritance," that the alliance between church and state is necessary for civil order, and that civil authority should be restricted to men "of permanent property." Rather, liberties are rights which all human beings "inherit at their birth, as rational creatures".

Customers based in the US and Canada, please order from: https://www.sas.ac.uk/envisionthisAmerica Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future. Customers in the USA and Canada can purchase the book from here: https://bit.ly/2KBk0V2

Studies the nature and development of Dr. King's political ideas and his contributions to modern political thought.

The globalization of trade, investment, and finance continues apace. Many have benefited from this, but deep inequalities persist. This book argues that the interconnections established by globalization make possible a critique of its inequality. For those who take seriously human dignity, equality is a basic presumption of social institutions.

The two volumes edited by Dr Wilson, Director of the John Memorial Foundation, make an important body of Johnson's writings more readily available to scholars in African-American studies. Volume II comprises literary essays, political essays, and song lyrics. The critical introduction places Johnson in relation to other black artists, the development of African-American literature and early integrationist movements.

"Models of Charitable Care" analyses the practice of Catholic nuns in Amsterdam in the 19th and 20th century. Attention is paid to the ambiguous ascetic spiritual discourse that underpinned their work: it encouraged charity as solidarity with strangers, but caused intense emotional distance too. Historiography is mainly manufactured by religious and lay academics who shared the congregational perspective and presented fairly positive evaluations. Criticism from within, however, is voiced by care leavers who grew up in homes ran by religious. Some are grateful, others bitter. The sisters were living models who combined an anti-worldly outlook with a practical concern for vulnerable creatures. Relating various theoretical interpretations, a typology of three models is developed with 'agency' as the differentiating criterion.

This book examines the contribution social theory can make to understanding different human rights which operate in a variety of settings. Including an introduction to the theoretical issues raised by the study of rights, it covers a range of individual and collective rights, illuminating the relationship between social theory and human rights.

Paradoxically, many governments that persistently violate human rights have also ratified international human rights treaties that empower their citizens to file grievances against them at the United Nations. Therefore, citizens in rights-repressing regimes find themselves with the potentially invaluable opportunity to challenge their government's abuses. Why would rights-violating governments ratify these treaties and thus afford their citizens this right? Can the mechanisms provided in these treaties actually help promote positive changes in human rights? "Insincere Commitments" uses both quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine the factors contributing to commitment and compliance among post-Soviet states such as Slovakia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Heather Smith-Cannoy argues that governments ratify these treaties insincerely in response to domestic economic pressures. Signing the treaties is a way to at least temporarily keep critics of their human rights record at bay while they secure international economic assistance or more favorable trade terms. However, she finds that through the specific protocols in the treaties that grant individuals the right to petition the UN, even the most insincere state commitments to human rights can give previously powerless individuals - and the nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations that partner with them - an important opportunity that they would otherwise not have to challenge patterns of government repression on the global stage. This insightful book will be of interest to human rights scholars, students, and practitioners, as well as anyone interested in the UN, international relations, treaties, and governance.

Today Russia and human rights are both high on the international agenda. Since Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, domestic developments--from the prosecution of Pussy Riot to the release of Khodorkovsky--and Russia's global role, especially in relation to Ukraine, have captured the attention of the world. The role of human rights activism inside Russia is, therefore, coming under ever greater international scrutiny. Since 1991, when the Russian Federation became an independent state, hundreds of organisations have been created to champion human rights causes, with varying strategies, and successes. The response of the authorities has ranged from being supportive, or indifferent, to openly hostile. Based on archival research and practical experience working in the community, Mark McAuley here provides a clear and comprehensive analysis of the progress made by human rights organisations in Russia--and the challenges which will confront them in the future.

This critique of the securitization and criminalization of asylum seeking challenges the claim that asylum seekers 'threaten' receiving states. It analyzes recent policy developments in relation to their wider historical, political and European contexts and argues that the UK response effectively renders asylum seekers as scapegoats.

What are the consequences of European integration on social movements? Who are the "winners" and the "losers" of Europe's organized civil society? This book explores the Europeanization of contention through an in-depth, comparative analysis of French and German pro-asylum movements since the end of the 1990s. Through an examination of their networks, discourses, and collective actions, it shows that the groups composing these movements display different degrees and forms of Europeanization, reflected in different fields of protest. More generally, it shows the multiple strategies implemented by activists to Europeanize their scope of mobilization and by doing so participate in the construction of a European public sphere.

Increasingly feminists around the world have successfully campaigned for recognition of women's full personhood and empowerment. Global Feminism explores the social and political developments that have energized this movement. Drawn from an international group of scholars and activists, the authors of these original essays assess both the opportunities that transnationalism has created and the tensions it has inadvertently fostered. By focusing on both the local and global struggles of today's feminist activists this important volume reveals much about women's changing rights, treatment and impact in the global world.

Contributors: Melinda Adams, Aida Bagic, Yakin Ert rk, Myra Marx Ferree, Amy G. Mazur, Dorothy E. McBride, Hilkka Pietil, Tetyana Pudrovska, Margaret Snyder, Sarah Swider, Aili Mari Tripp, Nira Yuval-Davis.

This book examines the contentious subject of human rights in China. However, in contrast to the majority of the literature which focuses on alleged Chinese abuses of human rights, the author examines the emergence and evolution of a Chinese conception of rights, paying attention to the impact of Confucianism, Republicanism, and Marxism on this conception. It is suggested that the joint influence of these doctrines helps to explain, among other things, the contemporary emphasis attached to socio-economic and collective rights in China, and the importance accorded to citizens duties in relation to the exercise of their rights.

The two volumes edited by Dr Wilson, Director of the John Memorial Foundation, make an important body of Johnson's writings more readily available to scholars in African-American studies. Volume I comprises editorials from "The New York Age" organized thematically, and a critical introduction discusses Johnson's role in the history of the black press.

There is a broad consensus among scholars that the idea of human rights was a product of the Enlightenment but that a self-conscious and broad-based human rights movement focused on international law only began after World War II. In this narrative, the nineteenth century's absence is conspicuous--few have considered that era seriously, much less written books on it. But as Jenny Martinez shows in this novel interpretation of the roots of human rights law, the foundation of the movement that we know today was a product of one of the nineteenth century's central moral causes: the movement to ban the international slave trade. Originating in England in the late eighteenth century, abolitionism achieved remarkable success over the course of the nineteenth century. Martinez focuses in particular on the international admiralty courts, which tried the crews of captured slave ships. The courts, which were based in the Caribbean, West Africa, Cape Town, and Brazil, helped free at least 80,000 Africans from captured slavers between 1807 and 1871. Here then, buried in the dusty archives of admiralty courts, ships' logs, and the British foreign office, are the foundations of contemporary human rights law: international courts targeting states and non-state transnational actors while working on behalf the world's most persecuted peoples--captured West Africans bound for the slave plantations of the Americas. Fueled by a powerful thesis and novel evidence, Martinez's work will reshape the fields of human rights history and international human rights law.

The authors explore the outlook of Rwanda in the context of development of East Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. They examine Rwanda's vision, achievements and uncertainties in terms of national unity, institutional leadership, the spectre of industrial policy and economic development, perceptions of civil society engagement, etc.

Will the British retain the monarchy and the English church establishment into the 21st century? The preservation of the monarchy and of the establishment of the church of England is a matter that cuts deep in fact and theory. The monarchy and the church are symbols of civil liberty, and as such they carry the freight of British national identity. Yet it is difficult to take those institutions seriously now because Britons give too little consideration to serious reforms of any kind for the monarchy or the church. This book suggests possible reforms.

Volume 56 of "Studies in Law, Politics, and Society" presents the latest scholarship on human rights. The work contained in this volume examines both the theoretical dimensions and dilemmas of human rights in the modern world and particular cases in which the problems and possibilities of human rights are examined. Taken together the contributions point to a need for more searching examination of the way human rights work and highlight the contribution of human rights to the advancement of claims for justice. "Studies in Law, Politics, and Society" is a leading socio-legal publication that truly embraces innovative, theoretically informed, interdisciplinary legal scholarship.

Endangered Peoples of Oceania: Struggles to Survive and Thrive introduces a wide range of Pacific Islanders and indigenous and migrant cultures in Australia and New Zealand and the challenges they face today. This volume focuses on 16 endangered peoples, from Micronesians and Melanesians to Samoans in New Zealand. Students and other readers will become knowledgeable about the contemporary impacts and responses to such factors as nuclear testing, migration for jobs, uncontrolled development, and ecotourism. The chapters are written by anthropologists based on their recent fieldwork, which guarantees unparalleled accuracy and immediacy. The peoples of Oceania are struggling to be economically independent and autonomous while maintaining their distinctive cultural traditions. Each chapter in Endangered Peoples of Oceania: Struggles to Survive and Thrive is devoted to a specific people, including a cultural overview of their history, subsistence strategies, social and political organization, and religion and world view; threats to their survival; and their response to these threats. A section entitled "Food for Thought" poses questions that encourage a personal engagement with the experience of these peoples, and a resource guide suggests further reading and lists films and videos as well as pertinent organizations and web sites. As the curriculum expands to include more multicultural and indigenous peoples, this unique volume will be valuable to both students and teachers.

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the contemporary conception of human rights. Combining philosophical, legal and political approaches, Nickel explains international human rights law and addresses questions of justification and feasibility.
New, revised edition of James Nickel's classic study.
Explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the" Universal Declaration of Human Rights" (1948) and subsequent treaties in a clear and lively style.
Covers fundamental freedoms, due process rights, social rights, and minority rights.
Updated throughout to include developments in law, politics, and theory since the publication of the first edition.
New features for this edition include an extensive bibliography and a chapter on human rights and terrorism.