The early Supreme Court justices wrestled with how much press and speech is protected by freedoms of press and speech, before and under the First Amendment, and with whether the Sedition Act of 1798 violated those freedoms. This book discusses the twelve Supreme Court justices before John Marshall, their views of liberties of press and speech, and the Sedition Act prosecutions over which some of them presided. The book begins with the views of the pre-Marshall justices about freedoms of press and speech, before the struggle over the Sedition Act. It finds that their understanding was strikingly more expansive than the narrow definition of Sir William Blackstone, which is usually assumed to have dominated the period. Not one justice of the Supreme Court adopted that narrow definition before 1798, and all expressed strong commitments to those freedoms. The book then discusses the views of the early Supreme Court justices about freedoms of press and speech during the national controversy over the Sedition Act of 1798 and its constitutionality. It finds that, though several of the justices presided over Sedition Act trials, the early justices divided almost evenly over that issue with an unrecognized half opposing its constitutionality, rather than unanimously supporting the Act as is generally assumed. The book similarly reassesses the Federalist party itself, and finds that an unrecognized minority also challenged the constitutionality of the Sedition Act and the narrow Blackstone approach during 1798-1801, and that an unrecognized minority of the other states did as well in considering the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. The book summarizes the recognized fourteen prosecutions of newspaper editors and other opposition members under the Sedition Act of 1798. It sheds new light on the recognized cases by identifying and confirming twenty-two additional Sedition Act prosecutions. At each of these steps, this book challenges conventional views in existing histories of the early republic and of the early Supreme Court justices.

On the twelfth floor of an undistinguished-looking high-rise, a tribunal adjudicates the human rights of Indigenous individuals. Why isn't the process working? Witness to the Human Rights Tribunals draws on testimony, ethnographic data, and years of tribunal decisions to show how specific cases are fought, and offers an in-depth look at anthropological expertise in the courts. Bruce Miller's candid analysis reveals the double-edged nature of the tribunal, which both protects human rights and re-engages the trauma of discrimination that suffuses social and legal systems. He definitively concludes that any reform must recognize symbolic trauma before Indigenous claimants can receive appropriate justice.

Before 9/11, films addressing torture outside of the horror/slasher genre depicted the practice in a variety of forms. In most cases, torture was cast as the act of a desperate and depraved individual, and the viewer was more likely to identify with the victim rather than the torturer. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, scenes of brutality and torture in mainstream comedies, dramatic narratives, and action films appear for little other reason than to titillate and delight. In these films, torture is devoid of any redeeming qualities, represented as an exercise in brutal senselessness carried out by authoritarian regimes and institutions.

This volume follows the shift in the representation of torture over the past decade, specifically in documentary, action, and political films. It traces and compares the development of this trend in films from the United States, Europe, China, Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East. Featuring essays by sociologists, psychologists, historians, journalists, and specialists in film and cultural studies, the collection approaches the representation of torture in film and television from multiple angles and disciplines, connecting its aesthetics and practices to the dynamic of state terror and political domination.

Rapid technological change, the advent of Big Data, and the creation of society-wide government surveillance programs have transformed the accessibility of highly personal information; these developments have highlighted the ambiguous treatment of privacy and personal intimacy. National legal systems vouchsafe and define "privacy," and its first cousin "dignity," in different ways that reflect local legal and cultural values. Yet, in an increasingly globalized world, purely local protection of privacy interests may prove insufficient to safeguard effectively fundamental autonomy interests - interests that lie at the core of self-definition, personal autonomy, and freedom. Privacy Revisited articulates the legal meanings of privacy and dignity through the lens of comparative law, and argues that the concept of privacy requires a more systematic approach if it is to be useful in framing and protecting certain fundamental autonomy interests. The book begins by providing relevant, and reasonably detailed, information about both the substantive and procedural protections of privacy/dignity in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and among Council of Europe member states. Second, the book explores the inherent tension between affording significant legal protection to the right of privacy (or human dignity) and securing expressive freedoms, notably including the freedom of speech and of the press. The author then posits that the protection of privacy helps to illuminate some of the underlying social and political values that lead the U.S. to fail to protect privacy as reliably or as comprehensively as other liberal democracies. Finally, the book establishes that although privacy and speech come into conflict with some regularity, it is both useful and necessary to start thinking about the important ways in which both rights are integral to the maintenance of democratic self-government.

Originally the constitution was expected to express and channel popular sovereignty. It was the work of freedom, springing from and facilitating collective self-determination. After the Second World War this perspective changed: the modern constitution owes its authority not only to collective authorship, it also must commit itself credibly to human rights. Thus people recede into the background, and the national constitution becomes embedded into one or other system of 'peer review' among nations. This is what Alexander Somek argues is the creation of the cosmopolitan constitution. Reconstructing what he considers to be the three stages in the development of constitutionalism, he argues that the cosmopolitan constitution is not a blueprint for the constitution beyond the nation state, let alone a constitution of the international community; rather, it stands for constitutional law reaching out beyond its national bounds. This cosmopolitan constitution has two faces: the first, political, face reflects the changed circumstances of constitutional authority. It conceives itself as constrained by international human rights protection, firmly committed to combating discrimination on the grounds of nationality, and to embracing strategies for managing its interaction with other sites of authority, such as the United Nations. The second, administrative, face of the cosmopolitan constitution reveals the demise of political authority, which has been traditionally vested in representative bodies. Political processes yield to various, and often informal, strategies of policy co-ordination so long as there are no reasons to fear that the elementary civil rights might be severely interfered with. It represents constitutional authority for an administered world.

This book addresses one of the most serious societal questions of our time: how to create new spaces and frameworks for minority recognition given the State-centric sovereignty discourse and the persisting equality jargon that dominate today's world. By so doing it approaches minority rights by means of a critical engagement with its underlying premises. Notably, it makes attempts to both construct and reconfigure neglected legal categories, in particular collective rights, and to deconstruct domestic constitutional orders. More precisely, it does so through diametrically opposed levels of analysis, that is top-down and bottom-up logics, by exploring sociolegal strategies, forms and formats of governance on the one hand, and grassroots demands on the other. Drawing on empirical findings in Europe and Latin America, the book gives us a sense of how recognition needs to be contextualised against the background of right-wing trends in Europe and the re-building of the State in the Andes. This is a fascinating study of one of the key questions engaging human rights, minority studies and discrimination law.

Why do the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg have such an impact on UK law? Why did the UK need a Human Rights Act - and why do some people say it should be repealed? Human Rights Law Directions tackles these and many more questions, introducing students to this exciting area of law. The Directions series has been written with students in mind. The ideal guide as they approach the subject for the first time, this book will help them: - Gain a complete understanding of the topic: just the right amount of detail conveyed clearly - Understand the law in context: with scene-setting introductions and highlighted case extracts, the practical importance of the law becomes clear - Identify when and how to evaluate the law critically: they'll be introduced to the key areas of debate and given the confidence to question the law - Deepen and test knowledge: visually engaging learning and self-testing features aid understanding and help students tackle assessments with confidence - Elevate their learning: with the ground-work in place you can aspire to take learning to the next level, with direction provided on how to go further Digital formats and resources The fifth edition is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats, and is supported by online resources. - The e-book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with functionality tools, navigation features and links that offer extra learning support: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks - The online resources that support the book include: * Multiple choice questions * Flashcard glossary * Guidance on answering the end of chapter exam questions * Guidance on answering the end of chapter self-test questions * Annotated web links * Annual updates to the book

This volume represents key scholarship on the issue of parental rights and responsibilities, selected from a dense forest of literature. The collection offers an overview of the subject and covers topics such as: underlying rationales of who or what is a parent; legal concepts of 'parent' and their linkage; the legal parent - accommodating complexity; the nature and scope of parental rights; shared parental responsibility; and parental rights and the state.

Cosmopolitanism and the Development of the International Criminal Court analyzes a set of prominent and competing discourses that emerged in the context of the development and establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is the first permanent juridical body designed to prosecute individuals who commit offences including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Drawing on scholarship on public memory and human rights, the book argues that international law and the international human rights system play a key role for the development of transnational memory discourses and transnational or cosmopolitan subjectivities. Despite the International Criminal Court being recognized as a landmark development in global cooperation, an examination of key events in the development of the court shows how some state and nonstate actors advance calls for cosmopolitanism while others resist cosmopolitanism to bolster nation-state sovereignty. Drawing on the establishment of the International Criminal Court as a case study, the book examines several events that continue to shape national and international public discourse. The book examines debates that occurred during the drafting process of the international treaty at the United Nations and that led to the groundbreaking inclusion of provisions on gender and sexual violence in the Rome Statute of the ICC in 1998. The analysis discusses the tension between feminist advocates' rhetoric and the discourse of anti-women's rights actors involved in the treaty-making process who resisted such inclusions in international criminal law. The book analyzes other key events related to the establishment of the ICC that invoke tensions between competing demands of cosmopolitanism and national sovereignty, including advocacy campaigns by nongovernmental organizations working to drum up public support of the institution of the International Criminal Court and the debates surrounding the unprecedented act of the United States "unsigning" an international treaty. In sum, this examination of the rhetoric of state and nonstate actors attempting to shape the court according to their visions of global community shows how discourses about international criminal law and human rights are employed not only to advance cosmopolitanism but also to strengthen nationalist discourses.

This volume gathers influential and cutting-edge scholarship on the international and domestic rights attaching to married couples and other adult relationships. Addressing examples from the European Court of Human Rights, UK, USA, Canada, Australia and South Africa, it traces contentious debates about the content of marital rights and responsibilities and whether law should reach beyond marriage, and if so how. Twenty-four essays and a substantial introduction highlight the complexity and contradictions as marital law grapples with gender equality, the aftermath of recognizing gay and lesbian rights, abiding economic inequalities, and 'exotic' issues such as forced marriage and polygamy.

Grassroots researchers examine the barriers and ways of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in Africa. Many have praised the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), first adopted by the UN in 2006, as a revolutionary step towards disability rights in Africa. But how real is the progress towards equality for persons with physical disabilities, mental health difficulties, blindness, deafness or albinism? What are the barriers to the CRPD's successful implementation on the continent, and how might we enforce inclusiveness and equality among those disadvantaged? This book brings together the findings of researchers in Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa to offer grassroots' perspectives on the challenges and possibilities of achieving disability rights under the CRPD. Challenging the generally optimistic view presented to date, the contributors provide evidence-based trenchant critiques of the Convention, highlight the ways in which disability rights are interpreted in varying contexts and with different disabilities, and examine particular issues in relation to children and women. Finally, the contributors suggest ways of moving forward and achieving disability rights in Africa.

The EU Citizenship Directive defines the right of free movement for citizens of the European Economic Area. It applies to EU citizens and their family members who move to another Member State. This might at first seem like a straightforward definition, but immediately questions arise. Who determines if a person is an EU citizen at all? What about dual citizens of two Member States, or of one Member State and a non-Member State (a 'third State')? What is the position of EU citizens who move to one Member State, and then return to their home Member State? This book provides a comprehensive commentary of the EU's Citizens' Directive tracing the evolution of the Directive's provisions, placing each article in its historical and legislative context. Special emphasis is placed on highlighting the connections and interactions between the Directive's constituent provisions so as to permit a global appreciation of the system of free movement rights to which the Directive gives effect. Each provision is annotated containing a detailed analysis of the case-law of the Court of Justice as well as of related measures impacting upon the Directive's interpretation including European Commission reports and guidelines on the Directive's implementation. This fully-updated new edition includes dscussion of relevant case law since the first edition, and has been expanded to include detailed discussion of rights of EU and UK citizens after Brexit in the withdrawal agreement.

This collection examines the role and value of rights in divided and post-conflict societies, approaching the subject from a comparative and theoretical perspective. Societies emerging from violent conflict often opt for a bill of rights as part of a wider package of constitutional reform. Where conflict is fuelled by longstanding ethno-national divisions, these divisions are often addressed through group-differentiated rights. Recent constitutional settlements have highlighted the difficulties in drafting a bill of rights in divided/post-conflict societies, where the aim of promoting unity is frequently in tension with the need to accommodate difference. In such cases, a bill of rights might be a rallying point around which both minorities and the majority can articulate a common vision for a shared society. Conversely, a bill of rights might provide merely another venue in which to play out familiar conflicts, further dividing an already divided society. The central questions that animate the collection are: (1) Can constitutional rights provide a basis for unity and a common 'human rights culture' in divided societies? If so, how? (2) To what extent should divided societies opt for a universalistic package of rights protections, or should the rights be tailored to the specific circumstances of a divided society, providing for special group-sensitive protections for minorities? (3) Is a divided society more or less likely to adopt a bill of rights? (4) How does the judiciary figure in the management or resolution of ethno-national conflict? (5) What are the general theoretical and philosophical issues at stake in a rights-based approach to the management or resolution of ethno-national divisions or other conflicts?

American public schools often censor controversial student speech that the Constitution protects. Lessons in Censorship brings clarity to a bewildering array of court rulings that define the speech rights of young citizens in the school setting. Catherine J. Ross examines disputes that have erupted in our schools and courts over the civil rights movement, war and peace, rights for LGBTs, abortion, immigration, evangelical proselytizing, and the Confederate flag. She argues that the failure of schools to respect civil liberties betrays their educational mission and threatens democracy. From the 1940s through the Warren years, the Supreme Court celebrated free expression and emphasized the role of schools in cultivating liberty. But the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts courts retreated from that vision, curtailing certain categories of student speech in the name of order and authority. Drawing on hundreds of lower court decisions, Ross shows how some judges either misunderstand the law or decline to rein in censorship that is clearly unconstitutional, and she powerfully demonstrates the continuing vitality of the Supreme Court's initial affirmation of students' expressive rights. Placing these battles in their social and historical context, Ross introduces us to the young protesters, journalists, and artists at the center of these stories. Lessons in Censorship highlights the troubling and growing tendency of schools to clamp down on off-campus speech such as texting and sexting and reveals how well-intentioned measures to counter verbal bullying and hate speech may impinge on free speech. Throughout, Ross proposes ways to protect free expression without disrupting education.

Has there always been an inalienable 'right to have rights' as part of the human condition, as Hannah Arendt famously argued? The contributions to this volume examine how human rights came to define the bounds of universal morality in the course of the political crises and conflicts of the twentieth century. Although human rights are often viewed as a self-evident outcome of this history, the essays collected here make clear that human rights are a relatively recent invention that emerged in contingent and contradictory ways. Focusing on specific instances of their assertion or violation during the past century, this volume analyzes the place of human rights in various arenas of global politics, providing an alternative framework for understanding the political and legal dilemmas that these conflicts presented. In doing so, this volume captures the state of the art in a field that historians have only recently begun to explore.

The national security and civil liberties tensions of the World War II mass incarceration link 9/11 and the 2015 Paris-San Bernardino attacks to the Trump era in America. This marked an era darkened by accelerating discrimination against, and intimidation of those asserting rights of freedom of religion, association and speech, and by increasingly volatile protests. This book discusses the broad civil liberties challenges posed by these past-into-the-future linkages highlighting pressing questions about the significance of judicial independence for a constitutional democracy committed both to security and to the rule of law. One of which is: Will courts fall passively in line with the elective branches, as they did in Korematsu v. United States, or serve as the guardian of the Bill of Rights, scrutinizing claims of "pressing public necessity" as justification for curtailing fundamental liberties? This book portrays the present-day significance of the Supreme Court's partially discredited, yet never overruled, 1944 decision upholding the constitutional validity of the mass Japanese American exclusion leading to indefinite incarceration. Second, it implicates prospects for judicial independence in adjudging Harassment, Exclusion, Incarceration disputes in contemporary America and beyond. Third, it engages the American populace in shaping law and policy at the ground level by placing the courts' legitimacy on center stage. This book addresses who we are as Americans and whether we are genuinely committed to democracy governed by the Constitution.

This book analyses the horizontal effect of fundamental rights in the European Union, from a constitutional perspective. It advances two main arguments: First, it argues that the horizontal effect of fundamental rights (i.e. their application to disputes between private parties) cannot be usefully discussed based on the existing EU horizontality doctrine, which associates horizontality with the exercise of horizontal direct effect only. That doctrine is characterised by a series of overly technical rules as to how the latter may be produced and has a case-specific nature that lacks overall constitutional coherence. Secondly, the book argues that a substantive theory of horizontality is required in EU law and sketches its main parameters. In the fundamental rights context, horizontal effect has organisational implications for society, which go beyond specific intersubjective disputes. It is argued that its determination requires an explicit recognition of the public character of certain private platforms of will formation (e.g. the workplace) and a discussion of the role of fundamental rights therein. At the same time, a constitutionally adequate model of horizontality involves an acknowledgment of the supranational character of EU adjudication: the determination of horizontal applicability of a fundamental right within a type of private authority relationship falls upon the Court of Justice, but the precise manifestation of horizontal effect (e.g. direct, indirect or state-mediated effect) rests with national courts.

["New Default and Purchasing Law. An Interim Review"]; The written version of a lecture given to the Berlin Legal Society. The author makes an initial assessment of the new Default and Purchasing Act two years after the Law of Obligations Modernisation Act came into force. Both the pseudo-problems and the real problems of this area are illustrated here, as are individual questions of the conformity to guidelines of the new Purchasing Act. In particular this advocates a fair interaction with the new law and a discussion free from prejudice. The reform is also evaluated within the context of European Civil Rights Standardisation.

Current estimates of the numbers of people who will be forced from their homes as a result of climate change by the middle of the century range from 50 to 200 million. Therefore, even the most optimistic projections envisage a crisis of migration that will dwarf any we have seen so far. And yet attempts to develop legal mechanisms to deal with this impending crisis have reached an impasse that shows little sign of being overcome. This is in spite of the rapidly growing academic study and policy development in the area of climate change generally. 'Climate Refugees': Beyond the Legal Impasse? addresses a fundamental gap in academic literature and policy making - namely the legal 'no-man's land' in which the issue of climate refugees currently resides. Past proposals for the regulation of climate-induced migration are evaluated, inter alia by their original authors, and the volume also looks at current attempts to regulate climate-induced migration, including by officials from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Platform on Displacement Disaster (PDD). Bringing together experts from a variety of academic fields, as well as officials from leading international organisations, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Environmental Law, Refugee Law, Human Rights Law, Environmental Studies and International Relations.

This book is the first to systematically examine Chinese refugee law and policy. It provides in-depth legal and policy analysis and makes recommendations to relevant stakeholders, drawing upon not only existing legal and policy scholarships but also empirical information acquired through field visits and interviews with refugees, former refugees, and staff of governmental and non-governmental organisations working with displaced population. It is a timely response to rapidly growing international interest in and demand for information about Chinese and Asian approaches to refugee protection in academia and the policy sector.

Europeans have attempted for some time to develop a human rights talk and now European intellectuals are talking about the need to construct 'European narratives'. This book illustrates that these narratives will emphasize a political and cultural vision for a multi-ethnic and more cosmopolitan Europe. The narratives evolve around human rights, partly in the hope that they might function as a cultural glue in an increasingly multi-ethnic Europe, and partly because they are intimately connected with that part of enlightenment thinking that sought to promote democracy and the rule of law. Helle Porsdam discusses the development of human rights as a discourse of atonement for Europeans - a discourse which has the potential to become a shared, transatlantic discourse. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be an invaluable research tool for postgraduate students and scholars within the fields of law, history, political science and international relations.

The courts use the proportionality test to assess the Convention-compatibility of the full range of government action, from administrative decisions to primary legislation. In applying the test, the courts are often conscious of the need to pay some deference to the expertise and competence of other branches of government. This rigorous analysis of the relationship between proportionality and deference under the Human Rights Act sets out a model of proportionality, drawn from existing case law, which integrates deference within the multi-stage proportionality test. The model is 'institutionally sensitive' and can be applied to proportionality-based judicial review of all forms of government activity. The model is shown in operation in three fields that span the full range of government activity: immigration (administrative action), criminal justice (legislation) and housing (multi-level decisions).

Western commentators have often criticized the state of press freedom in China, arguing that individual speech still suffers from arbitrary restrictions and that its mass media remains under an authoritarian mode. Yet the history of press freedom in the Chinese context has received little examination. Unlike conventional historical accounts which narrate the institutional development of censorship and people's resistance to arbitrary repression, Freedom of the Press in China: A Conceptual History, 1831-1949 is the first comprehensive study presenting the intellectual trajectory of press freedom. It sheds light on the transcultural transference and localization of the concept in modern Chinese history, spanning from its initial introduction in 1831 to the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By examining intellectuals' thoughts, common people's attitudes, and official opinions, along with the social-cultural factors that were involved in negotiating Chinese interpretations and practices in history, this book uncovers the dynamic and changing meanings of press freedom in modern China.

How policies forged after September 11 were weaponized under Trump and turned on American democracy itself In the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, the American government implemented a wave of overt policies to fight the nation's enemies. Unseen and undetected by the public, however, another set of tools was brought to bear on the domestic front. In this riveting book, one of today's leading experts on the US security state shows how these "subtle tools" imperiled the very foundations of democracy, from the separation of powers and transparency in government to adherence to the Constitution. Taking readers from Ground Zero to the Capitol insurrection, Karen Greenberg describes the subtle tools that were forged under George W. Bush in the name of security: imprecise language, bureaucratic confusion, secrecy, and the bypassing of procedural and legal norms. While the power and legacy of these tools lasted into the Obama years, reliance on them increased exponentially in the Trump era, both in the fight against terrorism abroad and in battles closer to home. Greenberg discusses how the Trump administration weaponized these tools to separate families at the border, suppress Black Lives Matter protests, and attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Revealing the deeper consequences of the war on terror, Subtle Tools paints a troubling portrait of an increasingly undemocratic America where disinformation, xenophobia, and disdain for the law became the new norm, and where the subtle tools of national security threatened democracy itself.

Together, the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights comprise the constitutional foundation of the United States. These-the oldest governing documents still in use in the world-urgently need an update, just as the constitutions of other countries have been updated and revised. Human Rights Of, By, and For the People brings together lawyers and sociologists to show how globalization and climate change offer an opportunity to revisit the founding documents. Each proposes specific changes that would more closely align US law with international law. The chapters also illustrate how constitutions are embedded in society and shaped by culture. The constitution itself sets up contentious relationships among the three branches of government and between the federal government and each state government, while the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments begrudgingly recognize the civil and political rights of citizens. These rights are described by legal scholars as "negative rights," specifically as freedoms from infringements rather than as positive rights that affirm personhood and human dignity. The contributors to this volume offer "positive rights" instead. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), written in the middle of the last century, inspires these updates. Nearly every other constitution in the world has adopted language from the UDHR. The contributors use intersectionality, critical race theory, and contemporary critiques of runaway economic inequality to ground their interventions in sociological argument.