.In Our Right to Drugs, Thomas Szasz shows that our present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the American government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines. By the end of World War I, however, the free market in drugs was but a dim memory, if that. Instead of dwelling on the familiar impracticality or unfairness of our drug laws, Szasz demonstrates the deleterious effects of prescription laws which place people under lifelong medical tutelage. The result is that most Americans today prefer a coercive and corrupt command drug economy to a free market in drugs.

Throughout the book, Szasz stresses the consequences of the fateful transformation of the central aim of American drug prohibitions from protecting us from being fooled by misbranded drugs to protecting us from harming ourselves by self-medication--defined as drug abuse. And he reminds us that the choice between self-control and state coercion applies to all areas of our lives, drugs being but one of the theaters in which this perennial play may be staged. A free society, Szasz emphasizes, cannot endure if its citizens reject the values of self-discipline and personal responsibility and if the state treats adults as if they were naughty children. In a no-holds-barred examination of the implementation of the War on Drugs, Szasz shows that under the guise of protecting the vulnerable members of our society--especially children, blacks, and the sick--our government has persecuted and injured them. Leading politicians persuade parents to denounce their children, and encourage children to betray their parents and friends--behavior that subverts family loyalties and destroys basic human decency. And instead of protecting blacks and Hispanics from dangerous drugs, this holy war has allowed us to persecute them, not as racists but as therapists--working selflessly to bring about a drug-free America. Last but not least, to millions of sick Americans, the War on Drugs has meant being deprived of the medicines they want-- because the drugs are illegal, unapproved here though approved abroad, or require a prescription a physician may be afraid to provide. The bizarre upshot of our drug policy is that many Americans now believe they have a right to die, which they will do anyway, while few believe they have a right to drugs, even though that does not mean they have to take any. Often jolting, always stimulating, Our Right to Drugs is likely to have the same explosive effect on our ideas about drugs and drug laws as, more than thirty years ago, The Myth of Mental Illness had on our ideas about insanity and psychiatry.

This book presents a comprehensive review of fundamental rights issues that are currently in the spotlight. The first part explores why the question of whether or not fundamental rights have horizontal effect is a topic of endless debate. The second part focuses on human rights and the rule of law. It begins by arguing that the hitherto valid model of the rule of law is now outdated, and then goes on to outline the importance of the judicial dimension in countering threats to the independence of the judiciary. Lastly, the third part addresses a classic issue in the field of human rights: states' margin of appreciation, highlighting two aspects: (i) the elements used by the ECJ to determine the scope of the margin of appreciation, which varies depending on the subject matter, the nature of the right in question, as well as the severity and the purpose of the interference; and (ii) the margin of appreciation enjoyed by national courts when interpreting the law. Exploring current issues concerning a topic of eternal interest, the book will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike. Written by formidable intellectual talents, committed to the study of fundamental rights, it rigorously analyses the most recent judgments of both the ECJ and the ECHR.

This book discusses human rights law, focusing on Chinese contributions to international human rights viewed from a perspective of global governance. The original research presented here integrates a variety of research methods: inter-disciplinary approaches, historical and comparative methods, documentary research and so on. The research findings can be described briefly as follows: In global governance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) serves as a historic cross-cultural heritage, while Pengchun Chang, the Chinese representative, made great contributions to the establishment of the international human rights system. After examining the characteristics of the Chinese discourse on human rights in global governance, the book suggests fundamental principles for improving human rights standards in China. In addition, it explores Chinese concepts of human dignity concerning the Declaration on Human Dignity for everyone, everywhere. The target readers are global scholars and students of law, politics, philosophy, international relations, human rights law, religion and culture. The book will provide these readers a vivid picture of China's contributions to international human rights, and a better understanding of the significance of traditional Chinese culture and wisdom.

This book focuses on China's evolution in the field of human rights protection, highlighting its achievements in various systems of human rights protection, as well as its role in international human rights governance and the healthy development of human rights. From the perspective of China's human rights protection, starting with various types of citizens, e.g. women, children and the disabled, the book analyzes and discusses the changes and major events in the country's human rights development path one by one, while also explaining the Chinese stance on human rights development. China is becoming more active in the international human rights cooperation field, playing its unique and constructive role and serving as the participant, builder and contributor of the international human rights governance.

This book addresses the 'three moments' in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) asylum seekers' and refugees' efforts to secure protection: The reasons for their flight, the Refugee Status Determination process, and their integration into the host community once they are recognized refugee status.The first part discusses one of the most under-researched areas within the literature devoted to asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity, namely the reasons behind LGBTI persons' flight. It investigates the motives that drive LGBTI persons to leave their countries of origin and seek sanctuary elsewhere, the actors of persecution, and the status quo of LGBTI rights. Accordingly, an intersectional approach is employed so as to offer a comprehensive picture of how a host of factors beyond sexual orientation/gender identity impact this crucial first stage of LGBTI asylum seekers' journey.In turn, the second part explores the challenges that LGBTI asylum seekers face during the RSD process in countries of asylum. It first examines these countries' interpretations and applications of the process in relation to the relevant UNHCR guidelines and questions the challenges including the dominance of Western conceptions and narratives of sexual identity in the asylum procedure, heterogeneous treatment concerning the definition of a particular social group, and the difficulties related to assessing one's sexual orientation within the asylum procedure. It subsequently addresses the reasons for and potential solutions to these challenges.The last part of the book focuses on the integration of LGBTI refugees into the countries of asylum. It first seeks to identify and describe the protection gaps that LGBTI refugees are currently experiencing, before turning to the reasons and potential remedies for them.

This volume explores the various challenges faced by migrant unaccompanied children, using a clinical sociological approach and a global perspective. It applies a human rights and comparative framework to examine the reception of unaccompanied children in European, North American, South American, Asian and African countries. Some of the important issues the volume discusses are: access of displaced unaccompanied children to justice across borders and juridical contexts; voluntary guardianship for unaccompanied children; the diverse but complementary needs of unaccompanied children in care, which if left unaddressed can have serious implications on their social integration in the host societies; and the detention of migrant children as analyzed against the most recent European and international human rights law standards. This is a one-of-a-kind volume bringing together perspectives from child rights policy chairs across the world on a global issue. The contributions reflect the authors' diverse cultural contexts and academic and professional backgrounds, and hence, this volume synthesizes theory with practice through rich firsthand experiences, along with theoretical discussions. It is addressed not only to academics and professionals working on and with migrant children, but also to a wider, discerning public interested in a better understanding of the rights of unaccompanied children.

This book gathers the very best academic research to date on prison regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean. Grounded in solid ethnographic work, each chapter explores the informal dynamics of prisons in diverse territories and countries of the region - Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic - while theorizing how day-to-day life for the incarcerated has been forged in tandem between prison facilities and the outside world. The editors and contributors to this volume ask: how have fastest-rising incarceration rates in the world affected civilians' lives in different national contexts? How do groups of prisoners form broader and more integrated 'carceral communities' across day-to-day relations of exchange and reciprocity with guards, lawyers, family, associates, and assorted neighbors? What differences exist between carceral communities from one national context to another? Last but not least, how do carceral communities, contrary to popular opinion, necessarily become a productive force for the good and welfare of incarcerated subjects, in addition to being a potential source of troubling violence and insecurity? This edited collection represents the most rigorous scholarship to date on the prison regimes of Latin America and the Caribbean, exploring the methodological value of ethnographic reflexivity inside prisons and theorizing how daily life for the incarcerated challenges preconceptions of prisoner subjectivity, so-called prison gangs, and bio-political order. Sacha Darke is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at University of Westminster, UK, Visiting Lecturer in Law at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Affiliate of King's Brazil Institute, King's College London, UK. Chris Garces is Research Professor of Anthropology at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador, and Visiting Lecturer in Law at Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Ecuador. Luis Duno-Gottberg is Professor at Rice University, USA. He specializes in Caribbean culture, with emphasis on race and ethnicity, politics, violence, and visual culture. Andres Antillano is Professor in Criminology at Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuala.

Written by the refugees themselves, this highly original anthology of Palestinians forced to live outside their homeland brings together stories of what it means to be exiled, reflections on the events that led to being displaced, and the raw experience of daily life in a camp. The 11 lives given voice here are unique, each an expression of the myriad displacements that war and occupation have forced upon Palestinians since the Nakba of 1948. At the same time, they form a collective testament of a people driven from their homes and land by colonial occupation. Each story is singular; and each tells the story of all Palestinians. As Edward Said argued in 1984, the object of Israel's colonial warfare is not only material-seeking to minimise Palestinian existence as such-but is also a narrative project that aims to obliterate Palestinian history "as possessed of a coherent narrative direction pointed towards self-determination." In these pages, Palestinian refugees narrate their own histories. The product of a creative-writing workshop organized by the Institute for Palestine Studies in Lebanon, 11 Lives tells of children's adventures in the alleyways of refugee camps, of teenage martyrs and ghosts next-door, of an UNRWA teacher's dismay at the shallowness of her colleagues, and of the love, labour, and land that form the threads of a red keffiyeh. What unites these 11 stories is "the inadmissible existence of the Palestinian people" highlighted by Said. Their words persist, as one contributor writes, "between the Nakba and the Naksa, throughout defeats and massacres, love affairs and revolutions." The stories of Palestinians in exile are also open-ended, and will continue to reverberate across borders until Palestine is free. With contributions by: Nadia Fahed, Intisar Hajaj, Yafa Talal El-Masri, Youssef Naanaa, Ruba Rahme, Hanin Mohammad Rashid, Mira Sidawi, Wedad Taha, Salem Yassin, Taha Younis, Mahmoud Mohammad Zeidan Co-published with the Institute of Palestine Studies.

Social exclusion of minority groups is an intractable problem in many diverse nations. For some minority groups this means going to segregated schools, for others not having access to gainful employment or quality healthcare. But why does social exclusion persist, and what can one do to stop it? This book proposes a theory of how individual behavior contributes to social exclusion, a novel method for measuring that behavior, and solutions to ending it. Based on original fieldwork among Central and Eastern European Roma, the largest ethnic minority in Europe (yet still very understudied), and non-Roma, Ana Bracic develops a theory she calls the exclusion cycle, through which anti-minority culture gives rise to discrimination by members of the majority, and minority members develop survival strategies. Members of the majority resent these strategies, assuming that they are endemic to the minority group rather than an outcome of their own discriminatory behavior. To illustrate her theory, Bracic includes an analysis of a video game she created that simulates interactions between Roma and non-Roma participants, which members of these groups played through avatars (thereby avoiding contentious face-to-face interactions). The results demonstrate that majority members discriminate against minority members even when minority group members behave in ways identical to the majority. It also shows the way in which minority members develop survival mechanisms. Bracic draws on the results of the simulation to offer evidence that this cycle can be broken through NGO-promoted discussion and interaction between groups. She also draws on extant scholarship on interactions between Muslim women in France, African Americans, the Batwa in Uganda, and their respective majority communities.

Quarantine has shaped our world, yet it remains both feared and misunderstood. It is our most powerful response to uncertainty, but it operates through an assumption of guilt: in quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. An unusually poetic metaphor for moral and mythic ills, quarantine means waiting to see if something hidden inside of us will be revealed.

Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space – from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean to the hallways of the CDC, to the corporate giants hoping to disrupt the widespread quarantine imposed by Covid-19 before the next pandemic hits through surveillance and algorithmic prediction.

Yet quarantine is more than just a medical tool: Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley drop deep into the Earth to tour a nuclear-waste isolation facility beneath the New Mexican desert, strip down to nothing but protective Tyvek suits to see plants stricken with a disease that threatens the world’s wheat supply, and meet NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer tasked with saving the Earth from extraterrestrial infections.

The result is part travelogue, part intellectual history – a book as compelling as it is definitive, and one that could not be more urgent or timely.

Examines Eritrea's deprivation of human rights since independence and its transformation into a militarised "garrison state". When Eritrea gained independence in 1991, hopes were high for its transformation. In two decades, however, it became one of the most repressive in the world, effectively a militarised "garrison state". This comprehensive and detailed analysis examines how the prospects for democracy in the new state turned to ashes, reviewing its development, and in particular the loss of human rights and the state's political organisation. Beginning with judicial development in independent Eritrea, subsequent chapters scrutinise the rule of law and the court system; the hobbled process of democratisation, and the curtailment of civil society; the Eritrean prison system and everyday life of detention and disappearances; and the situation of minorities in the country, first in general terms and then through exploration of a case study of the Kunama ethnic group. While the situation is bleak, it is not without hope, however:the conclusion focuses on opposition to the current regime, and offers scenarios of regime change and how the coming of a second republic may yet reconfigure Eritrea politically. Kjetil Tronvoll is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjoerknes College, founding and senior partner of the International Law and Policy Institute, Oslo, and a former Professor of Human Rights at the University of Oslo; Daniel R. Mekonnen is Senior Legal Advisor, International Law and Policy Institute, Oslo, and former Judge of the Zoba Maekel Provincial Court in Eritrea.

This timely book comprehensively examines whether the worst human rights violations directed specifically at sexual and gender minorities are punishable under international criminal law, as codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Drawing on general rules of interpretation, the development of human rights for sexual and gender minorities, and the social construction of gender, this monograph reveals that the worst crimes committed against persons because of their sexual orientation or gender identity can amount to crimes against humanity, particularly the crime of persecution under Article 7(1)(h). It also shows how legislators can be held individually criminally responsible for passing laws that criminalize consensual same-sex sexuality. The book not only makes a significant and original contribution to the literature but is also highly relevant for international criminal law practitioners, since, so far, no cases regarding this topic exist. Dr. Valerie V. Suhr is currently a trainee lawyer in the district of the Koblenz Court of Appeal in Germany

Is a strong cosmopolitan stance irretrievably arrogant? Cosmopolitanism, which affirms universal moral principles and grants no fundamental moral significance to the state, has become increasingly central to normative political theory. Yet, it has faced persistent claims that it disdains local attachments and cultures, while also seeking the neo-imperialistic imposition of Western moral views on all persons. The critique is said to apply with even greater force to institutional cosmopolitan approaches, which seek the development of global political institutions capable of promoting global aims for human rights, democracy, etc. This book works to address such objections through developing a novel theory of cosmopolitan political humility. It draws on the work of Indian constitutional architect and social activist B.R. Ambedkar, who cited universal principles of equality and rights in confronting domestic exclusions and the "arrogance" of caste. He sought to advance forms of political humility, or the recognition of equal standing, and openness to input and challenge within political institutions. This book explores how an "institutional global citizenship" approach to cosmopolitanism could similarly promote political humility globally, by supporting the development of democratic input and challenge mechanisms beyond the state. Such developments would challenge an essential political arrogance identified in the current system, where sovereign states are empowered to simply dismiss rights-based challenges from outsiders or their own populations-even as they serve as the designated guarantors of human rights. The book employs an innovative grounded normative theory method, where extensive original field research informs the development of moral claims. Insights are taken from Dalit activists reaching out to United Nations human rights bodies for support in challenging caste discrimination, and from their critics in the governing Bharatiya Janata Party. Further insights are drawn from Turkish protestors confronting a rising domestic authoritarianism, and from UK Independence Party members demanding "Brexit" from the European Union-in part because predominantly Muslim Turkey could eventually join. Overall, it is shown, an institutional global citizenship approach can inform the development of a global framework which would orient fundamentally to political humility rather than arrogance, and which could significantly advance global rights protections.

Rights have become,in recent years, a significant concern of legal theorists, as well as of those involved in moral and political philosophy. This new book seeks to move a number of debates forward by developing the analysis of rights and focusing upon more general theoretical considerations relating to rights. The book is divided into five parts. The first includes an explanation of the part played by conceptual analysis within jurisprudence, while the second conducts a re-examination of Hohfeld's analysis of rights. This part deals with the arguments advanced by a number of modern theorists including Hart, White and MacCormick. The third part contains the author's own framework for discussing rights, including examples drawn from tort, constitutional law and international law, together with an analysis of Unger's theory of rights. Part four centres on the perceived conflict between Dworkin, Rawls and Nozick as the defenders of a rights approach, and Bentham as the champion of utilitarianism and concludes that neither deals with the fundamental concerns of morality on which their theories are based. The fifth part consists of a conclusion which reflects on the key themes and considers the role of rights within general theory. For students, particularly helpful features of the book are the overt consideration of jurisprudential methodology and the opportunity to examine a number of key theorists linked by their divergent views on the subject of rights.

The aim of the book is to resolve the question of whether multiple sanctioning systems are contrary to the ne bis in idem under the regulation provided by Protocol 7 to the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The first part is a comparative study regarding the lawfulness of multiple sanctioning systems under the ne bis in idem, studying the evolution and the current state of the case law of the United States Supreme Court, the Canadian Supreme Court, the Spanish Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The second part of the book critically analyses three problems with the case law of the ECtHR and the CJEU. Part three deals with reconceptualizing the prohibition of multiple punishment and the prohibition of multiple prosecutions. Finally, the fourth part addresses other possible protections against multiple sanctioning systems. Two other safeguards that limit multiple sanctioning systems are the prohibition of disproportionate sanctions and the right to be tried within a reasonable time.

This volume examines the protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs) through an interdisciplinary lens, with a focus on IDPs in Africa. The novelty of this book resonates from the fact that it explores national perspectives on internal displacement, with the aim of providing a well-grounded engagement on the subject of internal displacement, for which very little exists. The chapter authors are drawn from various disciplines and institutional backgrounds, and provide context-based analysis and examine the situation in countries with significant population displacement. The work is a timely engagement, as the issue of internal displacement has emerged as a pertinent concern in Africa. Each of the chapters in this book draw on significant context-based knowledge and on issues for which there is a need for pertinent attention across the African countries. This book will be a significant reference point for researchers, professors, practitioners, judges, policy makers, international organizations, regional bodies, lawyers and scholars in the field of migration, forced migration, and regional institutions.

This book addresses emerging questions concerning who should bear responsibility for shouldering risk, as well as the viability of existing and experimental governance mechanisms in connection with new technologies. Scholars from 14 jurisdictions unite their efforts in this edited collection to provide a comparative analysis of how various legal systems are tackling the challenges produced by the legal aspects of genetic testing in insurance and employment. They cover the diverse set of norms that surround this issue, and share insights into relevant international, regional and national incursions into the field. By doing so, the authors offer a basis for comparative reflection, including on whether transnational standard setting might be useful or necessary for the legal aspects of genetic testing as they relate to the insurance and employment contexts. The respective texts cover a broad range of topics, including the prevalence of genetic testing in the contexts of insurance and employment, and policy factors that might affect this prevalence, such as the design of national health or social insurance systems, of private insurance schemes or the availability of low-cost direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Further, the field of genetics is gaining in importance at the international and regional levels. Relevant concepts - mainly genetic tests and genetic data/information - have been internationally defined, and these definitions have influenced definitions adopted nationally. International law also recognizes a "special status" for human genetic data. The authors therefore also consider these definitions and the recognition of the special status of human genetic data within regional and national legal orders. They investigate the range of norms that specifically address the use of genetic testing in employment and insurance, encompassing international sources - including human rights norms - that may be binding or non-binding, as well national statutory, regulatory and soft-law mechanisms. Accordingly, some of the texts examine general frameworks relevant to genetic testing in each country, including those that stem from general anti-discrimination rules and norms protecting rights to autonomy, self-determination, confidentiality and privacy. In closing, the authors provide an overview of the efficiency of their respective legal regimes' approaches - specific and generalist - to genetic testing or disclosure of genetic information in the employment or insurance contexts, including the effect of lack of legal guidance. In this regard, some of the authors highlight the need for transnational action in the field and make recommendation for future legal developments.

This book offers a synthesis of the main achievements and pending challenges during the thirty years of transitional justice in Chile after Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. The Chilean experience provides useful comparative perspectives for researchers, students and human rights activists engaged in transitional justice processes around the world. The first chapter explains the theoretical foundations of human rights and transitional justice. The second chapter discusses the main historical milestones in Chile's recent history which have defined the course of the process of transitional justice. The following chapters provide an overview of the key elements of transitional justice in Chile: truth, reparations, memory, justice, and guarantees of non-repetition.

The question of minority rights is one of the great dilemmas of contemporary politics. Increases in the flow of immigrants, migrants and refugees have raised public concerns that greater cultural and ethnic diversity creates instability within nation-states. But does stability really require homogeneity? Or can it be maintained in the presence of different minority groups?

In this path-breaking book, Jackson Preece analyses whether traditional minority rights theory is sufficiently dynamic to inform effective responses to modern challenges. The central premise behind minority rights is that groups recognized and supported by the political community are far less likely to challenge its authority or threaten its territorial integrity. However, as Jackson Preece shows, the potential for collisions of values and interests still exists, and the possibility of a permanent solution to the problem of diversity remains illusive.

"Minority Rights" will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of political science, international relations, law, and sociology.

The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has instructed all UN specialized agencies and other affiliated organizations to consider how their work might advance the cause of human rights around the world. Many of these bodies have taken this call to heart, with a wide range of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) trying to play a more active role in promoting human welfare. "Power and Principle" is a comparative study of how and why IGOs integrate human rights standards into their development operations. It focuses on the process of policy innovation in three UN-related IGOs: the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF,) the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO). In his comprehensive analysis, Joel E. Oestreich uses case studies to demonstrate how their policies have evolved during the past two decades to reflect important human rights considerations. Drawing on interviews with dozens of staffers from IGOs, Oestreich creates a gripping narrative of the inner workings of these large bureaucracies. In each study he describes how the organization first became interested in human rights standards, how these standards were adopted as a priority, how the organization defined rights in the context of their work, and what a rights-based approach has meant in practice. The book argues that IGOs ought to be seen as capable of meaningful agency in international politics, and describes the nature of that agency. It concludes with an examination of these organizations and their ethical responsibilities as actors on the world stage.

The book provides an in-depth discussion of democratic theory questions in relation to refugee law. The work introduces readers to the evolution of refugee law and its core issues today, as well as central lines in the debate about democracy and migration. Bringing together these fields, the book links theoretical considerations and legal analysis. Based on its specific understanding of the refugee concept, it offers a reconstruction of refugee law as constantly confronted with the question of how to secure rights to those who have no voice in the democratic process. In this reconstruction, the book highlights, on the one hand, the need to look beyond the legal regulations for understanding the challenges and gaps in refugee protection. It is also the structural lack of political voice, the book argues, which shapes the refugee's situation. On the other hand, the book opposes a view of law as mere expression of power and points out the dynamics within the law which reflect endeavors towards mitigating exclusion. The book will be essential reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of migration and refugee law, legal theory and political theory.

This book explores and addresses body search practices in prison environments from different angles (criminology, sociology, human rights and law) and discusses such practices in different national contexts within Europe. Body searches are widely used in prison systems across the globe: they are perceived as indispensable to prevent forbidden substances, weapons or communication devices from entering the prison. However, these are also invasive and potentially degrading control techniques. It should not come as a surprise, then, that body searches are deeply contested security measures and that they have been widely debated and regulated. What makes theses control measures problematic in a prison context? How do these practices come to be regulated in an international and European context? How are rules translated into national law? To what extent are laws and rules respected, bent, circumvented and denied? And what does the future hold for body searches?

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle is the international community's major response to the problem of genocide and mass atrocities - a problem seen in Bosnia, Rwanda and more recently in Syria. This book argues that although it is far from perfect R2P offers the best chance we have of building an international community that works to prevent these crimes and protect vulnerable populations. To make this argument, the book sets out the logic of R2P and its key ambitions, examines some of the critiques of the principle and its implementation in situations such as Libya, and sets out ways of overcoming some of the practical problems associated with moving this principle from words into deeds.

This third edition of Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism presents human rights in action, focusing on their effectiveness as legal tools designed to benefit human beings. By combining conceptual analysis with an emphasis on procedures and mechanisms of implementation, this volume provides a multidimensional overview of human rights. After examining briefly the history of human rights, the author analyses the intellectual framework that forms the basis of their legitimacy. In particular, he covers the concept of universality and the widely used model that classifies human rights into clusters of different 'generations'. In this edition, the author brings together the fundamental aspects of human rights law, addressing human dignity as the ethical foundation of human rights, the principle of equality and non-discrimination as the essence of any culture of human rights, the protections against racial discrimination and discrimination against women, and assesses the individual as a subject of international law. The volume then moves on to assess the activities of the political institutions of the United Nations, the expert bodies established by the relevant treaties, and the international tribunals specifically entrusted at the regional level with protecting human rights. This edition also includes specific analysis of the actions mandated by the UN Security Council against Libya in 2011. It also includes greater coverage of the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. The author explains how and why the classical array of politically inspired informal devices has been enriched by the addition of international criminal procedures and by endeavours to introduce civil suits against alleged individual violators of human rights. Finally, the volume is rounded off by a consideration of the importance of humanitarian law as an instrument for the protection of human life and dignity and an exploration of the future of human rights.

This book, which updates and expands the third edition published by Springer in 2015, explains, compares and evaluates the social and legal functions of adoption within a range of selected jurisdictions and on an international basis. From the standpoint of the development of adoption in England & Wales, and the changes currently taking place there, it considers the process as it has evolved in other countries. It also identifies themes of commonality and difference in the experience of adoption in a common law context, comparing and contrasting this with the experience under civil law and in Islamic countries and with that of indigenous people. This book includes new chapters examining adoption in Russia, Korea and Romania. Further, it uses the international conventions and the associated ECtHR case law to benchmark developments in national law, policy and practice and to facilitate a cross-cultural comparative analysis.