Volume 24 of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is dedicated to investigating IHL's universalist claims from different perspectives and regarding different areas of IHL. While academic debates about "universalism versus particularism" have dominated much of the critical scholarship in international law over the past two decades, they remain relatively underexplored in the field of IHL. The current volume fills this gap in IHL literature by focusing on the ways in which different interpretive communities approach questions of IHL from differing perspectives. Authors were invited to use the concept of culture to deconstruct and take critical distance from the production, interpretation, and application of IHL, and those keen on challenging the idea that IHL needs critical deconstruction were also invited to argue their case. The Volume contains four articles dedicated to the subject of cultures of IHL. It also features a book symposium on Samuel Moyn's Humane: How The United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War (2021) and ends, as usual, with a Year in Review section. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is a leading annual publication devoted to the study of international humanitarian law. The Yearbook has always strived to be at the forefront of the debate of pressing doctrinal questions of IHL and will continue to do so in the future. As this volume shows, it is also a forum for taking a step back and reflecting on the broader, theoretical issues that inform the practice and thinking about the field. The Yearbook provides an international forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this crucial branch of international law. Distinguished by contemporary relevance, it bridges the gap between theory and practice and serves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civil servants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.

Politicians and diplomats have for many years proclaimed a human right to water as a solution to the global water crisis, most recently in the 2010 UN General Assembly Resolution "The human right to water and sanitation". To what extent, however, can a right to water legally and philosophically exist and what difference to international law and politics can it make? This question lies at the heart of this book. The book's answer is to argue that a right to water exists under international law but in a more differentiated and multi-level manner than previously recognised. Rather than existing as a singular and comprehensive right, the right to water should be understood as a composite right of different layers, both deriving from separate rights to health, life and an adequate standard of living, and supported by an array of regional and national rights. The author also examines the right at a conceptual level. After disproving some of the theoretical objections to the category of socio-economic rights generally and the concept of a right to water more specifically, the manuscript develops an innovative approach towards the interplay of different rights to water among different legal orders. The book argues for an approach to human rights - including the right to water - as international minimum standards, using the right to water as a model case to demonstrate how multilevel human rights protection can function effectively. The book also addresses a crucial last question: how does one make an international right to water meaningful in practice? The manuscript identifies three crucial criteria in order to strengthen such a composite derived right in practice: independent monitoring; enforcement towards the private sector; and international realization. The author examines to what extent these criteria are currently adhered to, and suggests practical ways of how they could be better met in the future.

"Hegel's Philosophy of Right" is a classic text in the history of Western political thought and one with which all serious students of political philosophy must engage. While it is a hugely important and exciting piece of philosophical writing, Hegel's ideas and style are notoriously difficult to understand and the content is particularly challenging. In "Hegel's Philosophy of Right: A Reader's Guide", David Rose explains the philosophical and political background against which the book was written and, taking each part of the book in turn, guides the reader to a clear understanding of the text as a whole. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential and challenging of texts, offering guidance on philosophical and historical context; key themes; reading the text; reception and influence; and, further reading.

This book critically analyses diverse international criminal law (ICL) issues in light of recent developments in the international criminal justice system following the pursuit of accountability in Africa and around the world. It gives a scholarly analysis of issues pertaining to ICL and the pursuit of accountability in Africa by way of several topics including universal jurisdiction in Africa, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the legitimacy of the ICTR, the law of genocide committed against the Herero and Nama peoples, the African perspective on international co-operation in criminal matters, the Malabo Protocol, and whether an African Regional Court is a viable alternative to the ICC. Further discussed are other aspects of ICL, such as prosecuting sexual and gender-based crimes at the ICC, sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against men, guilty pleas within ICL and slavery within international criminal justice. With this, the book also refers to the jurisprudence of several international courts and tribunals including the ICTR, the ICTY, the SCSL, the ICC, the ECCC, the KSC, and the STL. This timely contributed volume updates international criminal law experts, practitioners, academics, human rights activists and other stakeholders on contemporary developments in ICL and provides recommendations that address accountability for mass atrocity crimes and ideas for strategic ICL litigation at the national, international, regional and sub-regional levels. It will prompt constructive exchanges on what can be improved in prosecuting mass atrocity crimes around the world. Takeh B.K. Sendze is an Advocate and Legal Officer with the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in Arusha, Tanzania. Adesola Adeboyejo is a Trial Lawyer at the International Criminal Court. Sir Howard Morrison QC is a former International Judge and an Associate Tenant at Doughty Street Chambers in London, United Kingdom. Sophia Ugwu is a Solicitor and Advocate who founded the Centre for African Justice, Peace and Human Rights in The Hague, The Netherlands.

The book identifies the main international concepts and rules that are of special relevance in disaster settings and critically analyses how they are implemented in such contexts. It shows that, although the crucial and growing importance of disaster response has resulted in a complex framework of international obligations, it is nonetheless guided by certain general principles/values. In particular, through an in-depth analysis of sovereignty, international cooperation and solidarity, and their manifestations in disaster contexts, the book assesses the concrete scope and nature of the obligations of the state affected by the disaster, and those of the international community, respectively. Considerable attention is devoted to the applicable legal framework governing disaster response in mixed situations of disaster and armed conflict, and to the main problems and operational challenges entailed by the involvement of foreign military personnel and assets in disaster response. The book's overall objective is to provide an authoritative overview of the development, core issues and challenges in international law with regard to disaster scenarios, and to serve as a valuable and comprehensive reference guide.

This title provides a specialized introduction to the philosophy, law and politics of human rights, uniquely tailored to criminologists and criminal justice practitioners. Exploring the connections between existing criminological scholarship and human rights frameworks, the book helps readers to incorporate human rights paradigms into their criminological analysis.

The main theme of this volume of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. The evolution of these crucial treaties and international humanitarian law more generally comes back in six chapters addressing topics such as sieges, compliance, indiscriminate attacks and non-state armed groups. The second part of the book contains a chapter on the acquittal on appeal of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo by the International Criminal Court on the basis of command responsibility for war crimes, as well as an extensive Year in Review describing the most important events and legal developments in the area of international humanitarian law that took place in 2019. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the world's only annual publication devoted to the study of the laws governing armed conflict. It provides a truly international forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this crucial branch of international law. Distinguished by contemporary relevance, the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law bridges the gap between theory and practice and serves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civil servants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fourteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

The book analyses the difficulties the International Criminal Court faces with the definition of those persons who are eligible for participating in the proceedings. Establishing justice for victims is one of the most important aims of the court. It therefore created a unique system of victim participation. Since its first trial the court struggles to live up to the expectancies its statute has generated. The book offers a new approach of how to define victimhood by looking at the different international crimes. It seeks to offer guidance for the right to participate in the different stages of the proceedings by looking at the practice in national jurisdictions. Lastly the book offers insights into the functioning of the reparation regime at the ICC by virtue of the Trust Fund for Victim and its different mandates. The critical analysis of the ICC-practice with regard to definition, participation and reparation aims at promoting a realistic approach, which will avoid the disappointing of expectations and thus help to enhance the acceptance of the ICC.

This book explores the role of gender in the recognition of an individual's legal capacity. It discusses the meaning of the right to legal capacity and its two core elements - legal personhood and legal agency. It then analyses historical and modern denials of personhood and agency experienced by women, disabled women, and gender minorities - for example, prohibitions from voting, limitations on contracting, loss of personhood upon marriage, and gender binary requirements leading to an inability to exercise legal capacity, among others. Using critical feminist, disability, and queer theory, this book also offers insights into the construction of legal personhood and its role as a predictor of power and privilege. The book identifies patterns of oppression through legal capacity denial in various jurisdictions and discusses situations in which modern law continues to enforce these denials. In addition, the book presents solutions: it identifies practices to learn from in various jurisdictions around the world - including both civil law and common law jurisdictions. It also uses case studies to illustrate the ways in which existing laws, policies and practices could be reformed. As such, the book offers both a novel contribution to the field of legal capacity law and a tool for creating change and helping to realise the right to legal capacity for all.

In present-day political and moral philosophy the idea that all persons are in some way moral equals is an almost universal premise, with its defenders often claiming that philosophical positions that reject the principle of equal respect and concern do not deserve to be taken seriously. This has led to relatively few attempts to clarify, or indeed justify, 'basic equality' and the principle of equal respect and concern.
Such clarification and justification, however, would be direly needed. After all, the ideas, for instance, that Adolf Hitler and Nelson Mandela have equal moral worth, or that a rape victim owes equal respect and concern to both her rapist and to her own caring brother, seem to be utterly implausible. Thus, if someone insists on the truth of such ideas, he or she owes his or her audience an explanation.
The authors in this volume-which breaks new ground by engaging egalitarians and anti-egalitarians in a genuine dialogue-attempt to shed light into the dark. They try to clarify the concepts of "basic equality," "equal moral worth,""equal respect and concern," "dignity," etc; and they try to (partially) justify-or to refute-the resulting clarified doctrines. The volume thus demonstrates that the claim that all persons have equal moral worth, are owed equal concern and respect, or have the same rights is anything but obvious. This finding has not only significant philosophical but also political implications.

This book is about the forces and processes that continue to sustain pervasive inequalities in modern capitalist societies. It centers around the rise of structuration theory in geography and how this approach may be applied in order to comprehend the deepening chasms between classes, races, ethnic groups, and individuals in North America today. Inner city urban neighborhood decay, growing poverty, widening wealth gaps, and sustained racial and gender discrimination in the workplace all have spatial components. Structuration theory, originally expounded by Anthony Giddens, seeks to confront the relation between agency and structure in the social sciences. The centerpiece of structuration theory is duality of structure, the force that produces and reproduces the fabric of everyday life. The chapters in this volume successfully apply Giddens's theory to a number of specific institutions and locales where unequal access to basic resources is notably pronounced.

Torture and Moral Integrity is about the wrongness of torture and the nature of morality. It discusses multiple types of torture with great philosophical acuity and it seeks to explain why interrogational torture and other types of torture are always and everywhere morally wrong. At the same time, it rigorously plumbs the general structure of morality and the intricacies of moral conflicts and it probes some of the chief grounds for the moral illegitimacy of various modes of conduct. It sophisticatedly defends a deontological conception of morality against some subtle critiques that have been mounted during the past few decades by proponents of consequentialism. The book tackles a concrete moral problem: a problem that has been heatedly debated during recent years in the governmental and military institutions of many countries as well as in academic circles. At the same time it tackles some very abstract issues in moral and political philosophy. Moreover, as becomes apparent at numerous junctures, the abstract ruminations and the concrete prescriptions are closely connected: Kramer's recommendations concerning the legal consequences of the perpetration of torture by public officials or private individuals, for example, are based squarely on his more abstract accounts of the nature of torture and the nature of morality. His philosophical reflections on the structure of morality are the vital background for his approach to torture, and his approach to torture is a natural outgrowth of those philosophical reflections.

Since the Arab Spring, Arab states have become the new front line in the struggle for democratization and for open societies. As the experience of other regions has shown, one of the most significant challenges facing democratization relates to minority rights. This book explores how minority claims are framed and debated in the region, and in particular, how political actors draw upon, re-interpret, or resist both the new global discourses of minority rights and more local traditions and practices of co-existence. The contributors examine a range of pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial factors that shape contemporary minority politics in the Arab world, and that encumber the reception of international norms of multiculturalism. These factors include the contested legacies of Islamic doctrines of the `dhimmi' and the Ottoman millet system, colonial-era divide and rule strategies, and post-colonial Arab nation-building. While these legacies complicate struggles for minority rights, they do not entail an `Arab exceptionalism' to global trends to multiculturalism. This volume explores a number of openings for new more pluralistic conceptions of nationhood and citizenship, and suggests that minority politics at its best can serve as a vehicle for a more general transformative politics, supporting a broader culture of democracy and human rights, and challenging older authoritarian, clientalistic, or patriarchal political tendencies. The chapters include both broad theoretical and historical perspectives as well as more focused case studies (including Western Sahara/Morocco, Algeria, Israel/Palestine; Sudan; United Arab Emirates, and Iraq).

Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights collects thirteen new essays that analyze how human agency relates to poverty and human rights respectively as well as how agency mediates issues concerning poverty and social and economic human rights. No other collection of philosophical papers focuses on the diverse ways poverty impacts the agency of the poor, the reasons why poverty alleviation schemes should also promote the agency of beneficiaries, and the fitness of the human rights regime to secure both economic development and free agency. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 considers the diverse meanings of poverty both from the standpoint of the poor and from that of the relatively well-off. Part 2 examines morally appropriate responses to poverty on the part of persons who are better-off and powerful institutions. Part 3 identifies economic development strategies that secure the agency of the beneficiaries. Part 4 addresses the constraints poverty imposes on agency in the context of biomedical research, migration for work, and trafficking in persons.

Following the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2020, and the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, there is increased interest in and a need to develop national human rights' bodies for children's rights. This book provides an in-depth look at one domestic independent children's rights institution: the Irish Ombudsman for Children's Office, to highlight the learnings for an international audience and the methodologies that can be used to promote and protect children's rights at a national level. Co-authored by Ireland's first Ombudsman for Children and a children's rights professor, the book will present an original and informed analysis of how a national human rights institution can advocate, most effectively, for the rights of children. By using illustrative case studies, the book will highlight how the powers of a national human rights institution can be put to strategic use to address specific children's rights deficits in areas of child protection, youth detention and public awareness about children's rights. Each chapter focusses on a case study, identifies a problem, the approach or intervention by the Ombudsman for Children, the outcome and reflects on lessons learned. It ensures that the cases can be extracted, examined and replicated in other jurisdictions by an international community interested in the promotion, monitoring and protection of children's rights. It speaks to those interested in Human Rights; Children's Rights; Socio-legal studies, Social Work; Childhood Studies; Administrative Law, Constitutional Law and International Law, and to practitioners and policy-makers in this field.

Traditionally, consumer law has played an instrumental role in the EU as a tool for market integration. There are now signs in the new EU legal framework and jurisprudence that suggest this may be changing. These changes can be seen in recent court cases and, above all, the Lisbon Treaty and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Treaty contains provisions affecting consumer law and, at the same time, it grants binding legal force to the EU Charter, which adds a fundamental rights dimension to consumer protection. This evolution, however, is still at an early stage and may be thwarted by conflicting trends. Moreover, it may generate tensions between social objectives and economic goals.
This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of these developments and examines new avenues that may be opening for consumer law, focussing on three key areas: financial services, electronic communication, and access to justice. Through a systematic analysis of relevant cases the book traces the development of a human rights dimension in consumer law and details the potential ramifications that the post-Lisbon legal framework may have on consumer protection and on related policy issues. This book concludes by providing ideas for a new legal approach to consumer law which strikes a compromise between social and economic demands.

This is a selection of Lord Irvine's major lectures and articles since 1995. It surveys the constitutional revolution that has taken place in Britain since the Labour Government came to power in 1997, taking in devolution and House of Lords reform, but with a particular focus on human rights. The evolution of a new human rights culture is traced, from the policy underlying the Human Rights Act 1998, through the scheme of the legislation and the preparations for implementation, to an analysis of the impact of the Act during its first two years. The work is of particular interest because Lord Irvine chaired the four main Cabinet Committees on constitutional change and introduced the Human Rights Bill to Parliament. Lord Irvine also considers the development and practice of public and administrative law, and the constitutional role of the British judiciary and the Lord Chancellor within our unique separation of powers. Alongside forays into criminal, commercial, and medical law, the collection also embraces an international perspective, with essays on the influence in Britain of european law; comparative analyses of key aspects of English, American and French jurisprudence; and a discussion of the continuing relevance of Magna Carta in Britain and Australia. This collection is a timely contribution to the debate on human rights, constitutional law and the English legal system at the turn of the new millennium, and will be of interest to judges, academics, practitioners and students.

Since the 1990s, human rights advocates, business leaders, and consumers have become increasingly attuned to mitigating sweatshop labor and other abuses in the supply chains that manufacture the clothing, electronics, and countless other products that we buy and use each day. But we know surprisingly little about how companies interact with people in the communities beyond the factory's walls. In many cases, community members are left out of the process of identifying both risks and solutions to problems in global supply chains, including how global companies could add social value in the localities where they operate. Business, governments, and civil society are supposed to be jointly responsible for shaping the remedies available to people harmed in the course of business activity, wherever it takes place. However, the answer to the question of how to do this remains underdeveloped and poorly executed. This book explores the conditions under which local communities and companies can work with one another and the types of remedies available in one of the most widespread and challenging sectors: light manufacturing. Tethered Fates draws on quantitative data (including the 7,000-company database of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre) and original qualitative data to analyze regional and industry-specific trends in stakeholder dialogue globally and at the local level. The book features original interviews with community members in two factory towns in the Dominican Republic, whose perspectives shed light on the prospects for dialogue with companies and the challenges of everyday life in towns where light manufacturing takes place. Tethered Fates does more than simply explain why stakeholder dialogue often falls short as a vehicle for safeguarding economic rights and promoting community development. It also offers an assessment of the varieties of emerging policy alternatives for moving beyond the current state of practice.

An international selection of writers tackle some of the toughest questions about improving the lives of women and explain why societies need fresh approaches in analysing what works and what doesn't for the most vexing issues.

This book introduces "biolaw" as an integrated and distinct field in contemporary legal studies. Corresponding to the legal dimension of bioethics, the term "biolaw" is already in use in academic and research activities to denote legal issues emerging mostly from advanced technological applications. This book is a genuine attempt to rationalize the field of biolaw after almost four decades of continuous production of relevant legislation and judgments worldwide. This experience is a robust basis for defending a) a separate legal object, covering the total of legal norms that govern the management of life as a natural phenomenon in all its possible forms, and b) an "evolutionary" approach that opens the discussion on a future conciliation of legal regulation with the Theory of Evolution on the ground of biolaw.

Is it impossible to assess dignity, which is the faculty or agency of autonomy and equality of rights under the current rule of law, when we are met by global challenges like climate change, financial crisis, food crisis, natural disasters, inequality, violent conflicts and trade disputes? Drawing on European philosophical enlightenment to rethink dominant theories of contemporary Western Human Rights, Stephan P. Leher explores the philosophical foundation of the concept of "dignity" and Human Rights. Using specific examples from Africa and Latin America to explain these concepts as social realizations in the world, Leher demonstrates the link between justice and peace and contends that dignity, freedom and Human Rights law rule are social realizations and claims by all people. With the help of language philosophy, he argues that sentences and propositions about social choices and realizations of real life expressed in ordinary language constitute the basic elements of the foundation and protection of human dignity and Human Rights. The social choice to claim one's freedom and rights can be considered the dignity agency of the individual. Dignity and Human Rights sheds new light on the academic assessment of dignity, the agency of autonomy and the equality of rights under the rule of law, in a time of changes and challenges to Human Rights policies and politics.

This book offers perspectives from the ground on human rights and peace in Timor-Leste. By highlighting the local voices, this book draws on their experience and expertise in engaging with questions concerning the nexus between human rights, peace and development. It posits that these concepts no longer mean absence of conflict, and argues that sustainable peace must be built from rights frameworks to protect the locals' interests in the processes. Acknowledging the lack of autonomy on local actors in peace-making contexts, the book emphasizes the urgent need to facilitate the creation of political and social structures that can support and offer contextual rights and dignity for the Timorese community.

A popular myth emerged in the late 1990s: in 1900, wars killed one civilian for every eight soldiers, while contemporary wars were killing eight civilians for every one soldier. The neat reversal of numbers was memorable, and academic publications and UN documents regularly cited it. The more it was cited, the more trusted it became. In fact, however, subsequent research found no empirical evidence for the idea that the ratio of civilians to soldiers killed in war has changed dramatically. But while the ratios may not have changed, the political significance of civilian casualties has risen tremendously. Over the past century, civilians in war have gone from having no particular rights to having legal protections and rights that begin to rival those accorded to states. The concern for civilians in conflict has become so strong that governments occasionally undertake humanitarian interventions, at great risk and substantial cost, to protect strangers in distant lands. I n the early 1990s, the UN Security Council authorized military interventions to help feed and protect civilians in the Kurdish area of Iraq, Somalia, and Bosnia. And in May 2011 , Barack Obama 's National Security Advisor explained the United States' decision to support NATO's military intervention in these terms "When the president made this decision, there was an immediate threat to 700,000 Libyan civilians in the town of Benghazi. We've had a success here in terms of being able to protect those civilians." Counting Civilian Casualties aims to promote open scientific dialogue by high lighting the strengths and weaknesses of the most commonly used casualty recording and estimation techniques in an understandable format. Its thirteen chapters, each authoritative but accessible to nonspecialists, explore a variety of approaches, from direct recording to statistical estimation and sampling, to collecting data on civilian deaths caused by conflict. The contributors also discuss their respective advantages and disadvantages, and analyze how figures are used (and misused) by governments, rebels, human rights advocates, war crimes tribunals, and others. In addition to providing analysts with a broad range of tools to produce accurate data, this will be an in valuable resource for policymakers, military officials, jou rnalists, human rights activists, courts, and ordinary people who want to be more informed-and skeptical-consumers of casualty counts.

In an age where racial and ethnic identity intersect, intertwine, and interact in increasingly complex ways, Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream offers a superb and rigorous analysis of black politics and coalitions in the post-Civil Rights era. Using an original survey of a New York City labor population and multiple national data sources, author Christina M. Greer explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. Black Ethnics concludes that racial and ethnic identities affect the ways in which black ethnic groups conceptualize their possibilities for advancement and placement within the American polity. The ethnic and racial dual identity for blacks leads to significant distinctions in political behavior, feelings of incorporation, and policy choices in ways not previously theorized. The steady immigration of black populations from Africa and the Caribbean over the past few decades has fundamentally changed the racial, ethnic, and political landscape in the U.S. An important question for social scientists is how these 'new' blacks will behave politically in the US. Should we expect new black immigrants to orient themselves to politics in the same manner as native Blacks? Will the different histories of the new immigrants and native-born blacks lead to different political orientations and behavior, and perhaps to political tensions and conflict among black ethnic groups residing in America? And to what extent will this new population fracture the black coalition inside of the Democratic party? With increases in immigration of black ethnic populations in the U.S., the political, social, and economic integration processes of black immigrants does not completely echo that of native-born American blacks. The emergent complexity of black intra-racial identity and negotiations within the American polity raise new questions about black political incorporation, assimilation, acceptance, and fulfillment of the American Dream. By comparing Afro-Caribbean and African groups to native-born blacks, this book develops a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the 'new black America' in the twenty-first century. Lastly, Black Ethnics explores how foreign-born blacks create new ways of defining and understanding black politics and coalitions in the post-Civil Rights era.