Generations of festering culture wars, compounded by actual wars in predominantly Muslim countries, the terrorism of Isis, and the ongoing migrant crisis have all combined to make religious discrimination the most pressing challenge now facing many governments. For the leading common law nations, with their shared Christian cultural heritage balanced by a growing secularism, the threat presented by this toxic mix has the potential to destabilise civil society. This book suggests that the instances of religious discrimination, as currently legally defined, are constrained by that cultural context, exacerbated by a policy of multiculturalism, and in practice, conflated with racial, ethnic or other forms of discrimination. Kerry O'Halloran argues that many culture war issues - such as those that surround the pro-choice/pro-life debate and the rights of the LGBT community - can be viewed as rooted in the same Christian morality that underpins the law relating to religious discrimination.

Why has there been a human rights backlash in Russia despite the country having been part of the European human rights protection system since the late 1990s? To what extent does Russia implement judgments of the Strasbourg Court, and to what extent does it resist the implementation? This fascinating study investigates Russia's turbulent relationship with the European Court of Human Rights and examines whether the Strasbourg court has indeed had the effect of increasing the protection of human rights in Russia. Researchers and scholars of law and political science with a particular interest in human rights and Russia will benefit from this in-depth exploration of the background of this subject.

The tension between blasphemy laws and the freedom of expression in modern times is a key area of debate within legal academia and beyond. With contributions by leading scholars, this volume compares blasphemy laws within a number of Western liberal democracies and debates the legitimacy of these laws in the twenty-first century. Including comprehensive and up-to-date comparative country studies, this book considers the formulation of blasphemy bans, relevant jurisprudential interpretations, the effect on society, and the ensuing convictions and penalties where applicable. It provides a useful historical analysis by discussing the legal-political rationales behind the recent abolition of blasphemy laws in some Western states. Contributors also consider the challenges to the tenability of blasphemy laws in a selection of well-balanced theoretical chapters. This book is essential reading for scholars working within the fields of human rights law, philosophy and sociology of religion, and comparative politics.

The calls for an international treaty to elaborate the human rights obligations of transnational corporations and other business enterprises have been rapidly growing, due to the failures of existing regulatory initiatives in holding powerful business actors accountable for human rights abuses. In response, Building a Treaty on Business and Human Rights explores the context and content of such a treaty. Bringing together leading academics from around the world, this book engages with several key areas: the need for the treaty and its scope; the nature and extent of corporate obligations; the role of state obligations; and how to strengthen remedies for victims of human rights violations by business. It also includes draft provisions for a proposed treaty to advance the debate in this contentious area and inform future treaty negotiations. This book will appeal to those interested in the fields of corporate social responsibility, and business and human rights.

The foundational principle of this book is the sacred rights enumerated in the United States Constitution, specifically, in the Firstand Thirteenth Amendments. With the politicization of the LGBTQ movement, concern for these rights have again come to the forefront of American jurisprudence. The rights enumerated in these amendments have frequently been violated by the various states when, in the name of public accommodation laws, they have attempted to force Christian business owners and religious entities to facilitate events, provide services, express opinions, change attitudes, or to enter into associations that violate their religious consciences. The book explores what it means to have free exercise of religion, free speech, and to be free of involuntary servitude in the context of the contending rights claimed by LGBTQ individuals. LGBTQ rights are neither denied nor disparaged, but the author argues that the constitutional rights of religious dissenters should not be denied or disparaged either. He also argues that when constitutional rights clash with statutory obligations, the former always triumphs. This has always been black letter law, and remains so in all cases except those in which LGBTQ rights clash with those of Christians. The book is not just a legal monograph. It engages political, philosophical, and sociological issues such as freedom v. equality, socialism v. republicanism, the liberal-progressive agenda in higher education, and the many benefits Christianity has bestowed on Western civilization. The underlying theme, however, remains, and that theme is that if we lose the freedom of religious conscience which the founding fathers made the "first freedom", we will lose all freedom.

Bringing armed conflicts to an end is difficult; restoring a lasting peace can be considerably harder. Reclaiming Everyday Peace addresses the effectiveness and impact of local level interventions on communities affected by war. Using an innovative methodology to generate participatory numbers, Pamina Firchow finds that communities saturated with external interventions after war do not have substantive higher levels of peacefulness according to community-defined indicators of peace than those with lower levels of interventions. These findings suggest that current international peacebuilding efforts are not very effective at achieving peace by local standards because disproportionate attention is paid to reconstruction, governance and development assistance with little attention paid to community ties and healing. Firchow argues that a more bottom up approach to measuring the effectiveness of peacebuilding is required. By finding ways to effectively communicate local community needs and priorities to the international community, efforts to create an atmosphere for an enduring peace are possible.

This book provides a comprehensive account of how child development and the right to development of children have been understood in international children's rights law. It argues that any conceptions of childhood focussed either on children's future as adults, or on children's lives in the present, overlook the hybridity of children's lived experiences. The book therefore suggests a new conception of childhood - namely, 'hybrid childhood' - which accommodates respect for children's agency and human dignity in the present, in the process of growth, and in the outcomes of this process when the child becomes an adult. Consequently, and building on the capability approach's idea of human development, the book presents a radical new interpretation of the child's right to development under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It offers a comprehensive interpretation of the right to development, which is one of the four guiding principles of the Convention.

Human Rights and the Judicialisation of African Politics shows readers how central questions in African politics have entered courtrooms over the last three decades, and provides the first transnational explanation for this development. The book begins with three conditions that have made judicialisation possible in Africa as a whole; new corporate rights norms (including the expansion of indigenous rights), the proliferation of new avenues for legal proceedings, and the development of new support structures enabling litigation. It then studies the effects of these changes based on fieldwork in three Southern African countries - Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana. Examining three recent court cases involving international law, international courts and transnational NGOs, it looks beyond some of international relations' established models to explain when and why and legal rights can be clarified. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of African politics and human rights, and more broadly to international relations and international law and justice.

In spite of a continued increase in the substantive scope and reach of EU fundamental rights, little attention has been paid to their practical enforcement. In this book, Mark Dawson looks at the mechanisms through which EU fundamental rights are protected and enforced, closely examining the interrelation between the EU's pertinent legal and political bodies. He argues that in order to understand EU fundamental rights we must also understand the institutional, political and normative constraints that shape the EU's policies. The book examines the performance of different EU institutions in relation to rights and studies two important policy fields - social rights and rule of law protection - in depth.

Edward Snowden's leaks exposed fundamental differences in the ways Americans and Europeans approach the issues of privacy and intelligence gathering. Featuring commentary from leading commentators, scholars and practitioners from both sides of the Atlantic, the book documents and explains these differences, summarized in these terms: Europeans should 'grow up' and Americans should 'obey the law'. The book starts with a collection of chapters acknowledging that Snowden's revelations require us to rethink prevailing theories concerning privacy and intelligence gathering, explaining the differences and uncertainty regarding those aspects. An impressive range of experts reflect on the law and policy of the NSA-Affair, documenting its fundamentally transnational dimension, which is the real location of the transatlantic dialogue on privacy and intelligence gathering. The conclusive chapters explain the dramatic transatlantic differences that emerged from the NSA-Affair with a collection of comparative cultural commentary.

Voting Rights of Refugees develops a novel legal argument about the voting rights of refugees recognised in the 1951 Geneva Convention. The main normative contention is that such refugees should have the right to vote in the political community where they reside, assuming that this community is a democracy and that its citizens have the right to vote. The book argues that recognised refugees are a special category of non-citizen residents: they are unable to participate in elections of their state of origin, do not enjoy its diplomatic protection and consular assistance abroad, and are unable or unwilling, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution, to return to it. Refugees deserve to have a place in the world, in the Arendtian sense, where their opinions are significant and their actions are effective. Their state of asylum is the only community in which there is any prospect of political participation on their part.

By reconsidering the definitions of human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced labour, Vladislava Stoyanova demonstrates how, in embracing the human trafficking framework, the international community has sidelined the human rights law commitments against slavery, servitude and forced labour that in many respects provide better protection for abused migrants. Stoyanova proposes two corrective steps to this development: placing a renewed emphasis on determining the definitional scope of slavery, servitude or forced labour, and gaining a clearer understanding of states' positive human rights obligations. This book compares anti-trafficking and human rights frameworks side-by-side and focuses its analysis on the Council of Europe's Trafficking Convention and Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. With innovative arguments and pertinent case studies, this book is an important contribution to the field and will appeal to students, scholars and legal practitioners interested in human rights law, migration law, criminal law and EU law.

The principle of proportionality, which has become the standard test for adjudicating human and constitutional rights disputes in jurisdictions worldwide has had few critics. Proportionality is generally taken for granted or enthusiastically promoted or accepted with minor qualifications. A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing presents a frontal challenge to this orthodoxy. It provides a comprehensive critique of the proportionality principle, and particularly of its most characteristic component, balancing. Divided into three parts, the book presents arguments against the proportionality test, critiques the view of rights entailed by it, and proposes an alternative understanding of fundamental rights and their limits.

The Demographic Transformations of Citizenship examines how attempts by contemporary states to govern demographic anxieties are shaping ideas about citizenship both as a boundary-maintaining mechanism and as an ideal of equal membership. These anxieties, while most often centred upon immigration, also stem from other demographic changes unfolding in contemporary states - most notably, the long-standing trend towards lower birth rates and consequent population ageing. With attention to such topics as control over borders, national identity, gender roles, family life and changing stages of life, Askola examines the impact of demographic changes, including but not limited to immigration. Drawing from a variety of disciplines, including law, demography, and sociology, this book discusses how efforts to manage demographic anxieties are profoundly altering ideas about citizenship and belonging.

Dieser Band untersucht die Rechtsprechung des Bundesgerichtshofs zum Nachweis des subjektiven Tatbestands der Vorsatzanfechtung. Die Untersuchung setzt sich mit der Frage auseinander, ob die Rechtsprechung des Bundesgerichtshofs insbesondere in den Fallgruppen der Anfechtung kongruenter Deckungen, der Anfechtung von Rechtshandlungen im Rahmen fehlgeschlagener Sanierungsbemuhungen und der Anfechtung bargeschaftsahnlicher Lagen zu sachgerechten Ergebnissen kommt oder ob eine Reform des Vorsatzanfechtungstatbestandes erforderlich ist.

In every era of communications technology - whether print, radio, television, or Internet - some form of government censorship follows to regulate the medium and its messages. Today we are seeing the phenomenon of 'machine speech' enhanced by the development of sophisticated artificial intelligence. Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover argue that the First Amendment must provide defenses and justifications for covering and protecting robotic expression. It is irrelevant that a robot is not human and cannot have intentions; what matters is that a human experiences robotic speech as meaningful. This is the constitutional recognition of 'intentionless free speech' at the interface of the robot and receiver. Robotica is the first book to develop the legal arguments for these purposes. Aimed at law and communication scholars, lawyers, and free speech activists, this work explores important new problems and solutions at the interface of law and technology.

How the United States can provide equal educational opportunity to every child The United States Supreme Court closed the courthouse door to federal litigation to narrow educational funding and opportunity gaps in schools when it ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez in 1973 that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to education. Rodriguez pushed reformers back to the state courts where they have had some success in securing reforms to school funding systems through education and equal protection clauses in state constitutions, but far less success in changing the basic structure of school funding in ways that would ensure access to equitable and adequate funding for schools. Given the limitations of state school funding litigation, education reformers continue to seek new avenues to remedy inequitable disparities in educational opportunity and achievement, including recently returning to federal court. This book is the first comprehensive examination of three issues regarding a federal right to education: why federal intervention is needed to close educational opportunity and achievement gaps; the constitutional and statutory legal avenues that could be employed to guarantee a federal right to education; and, the scope of what a federal right to education should guarantee. A Federal Right to Education provides a timely and thoughtful analysis of how the United States could fulfill its unmet promise to provide equal educational opportunity and the American Dream to every child, regardless of race, class, language proficiency, or neighborhood.

It seems like there is no such thing as privacy anymore. But the truth is that privacy is in danger only because we think about it in narrow, limited, and outdated ways. In this transformative work, Ari Ezra Waldman, leveraging the notion that we share information with others in contexts of trust, offers a roadmap for data privacy that will better protect our information in a digitized world. With case studies involving websites, online harassment, intellectual property, and social robots, Waldman shows how 'privacy as trust' can be applied in the most challenging real-world contexts to make privacy work for all of us. This book should be read by anyone concerned with reshaping the theory and practice of privacy in the modern world.

Diplomacy is used primarily to advance the interests of a state beyond its borders, within a set of global norms intended to assure a degree of international harmony. As a result of internal and international armed conflicts, the need to negotiate peace through an emerging system of international humanitarian and criminal law has required nations to use diplomacy to negotiate 'peace versus justice' trade-offs. Justice and Diplomacy is the product of a research project sponsored by the Academie Diplomatique Internationale and the International Bar Association, and focuses on specific moments of collision or contradiction in diplomatic and judicial processes during the humanitarian crises in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, and Libya. The five case studies present critical issues at the intersection of justice and diplomacy, including the role of timing, signalling, legal terminology, accountability, and compliance. Each case study focuses on a specific moment and dynamic, highlighting the key issues and lessons learned.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) entered into force on September 3, 1953, with binding effect on all Member States of the Council of Europe. It grants the people of Europe a number of fundamental rights and freedoms, including: right to life * prohibition of torture * prohibition of slavery and forced labor * right to liberty and security * right to a fair trial * no punishment without law * right to respect for private and family life * freedom of thought, conscience, and religion * freedom of expression * freedom of assembly and association * right to marry * right to an effective remedy * prohibition of discrimination. Any person who feels his or her rights under the ECHR have been violated by the authorities of one of the Member States can bring a case to the European Court of Human Rights, established under the Convention. Member States are bound by the Court's decisions and the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe make sure that the decisions are properly executed. Today, the Court receives thousands of petitions annually, demonstrating the immense impact of the Convention and the Strasbourg Court. This comprehensive German-style commentary deals with the ECHR systematically and article-by-article, considering the development and scope of each article, together with the relevant case-law and literature. It is an extremely useful tool for all those working and studying in the area of European human rights, and it will help in gaining a deeper understanding of the ECHR.

This collection of essays draws together innovative scholars to examine the relationship between two legal and political phenomena: the shrinking of the state as a monopoly of power in favour of the expansion of power over individuals in private hands, and the change in the nature of rights. The authors expertly discuss the implications of the changing boundaries of state power, the legal responses to this development, its application to human rights, and re-conceptualizations of public life as obligations are handed over to private hands. This innovative book deals with an important set of problems and offers a fresh perspective of different legal themes in an integrated fashion.

While discrimination in the workplace is often perceived to be undertaken at the hands of individual or 'rogue' employees acting against the better interest of their employers, the truth is often the opposite: organizations are inciting discrimination through the work environments that they create. Worse, the law increasingly ignores this reality and exacerbates the problem. In this groundbreaking book, Tristin K. Green describes the process of discrimination laundering, showing how judges are changing the law to protect employers, and why. By bringing organizations back into the discussion of discrimination, with real-world stories and extensive social-science research, Green shows how organizational and legal efforts to minimize discrimination - usually by policing individuals over broader organizational change - are taking us in the wrong direction, and how the law could do better, by creating incentives for organizational efforts that are likely to minimize discrimination, instead of inciting it.

Versicherungsunternehmen sind oft der Kritik ausgesetzt, durch ihr Verhalten Grundsatzurteile des BGH zu verhindern, weil sie das Revisionsverfahren (z.B. durch Anerkenntnis oder Rucknahme) beenden, nachdem sich abzeichnet, dass das Gericht eine andere Rechtsauffassung vertritt. Die Autorin untersucht, ob die Kritik daran gerechtfertigt ist. Ausgangspunkt der UEberlegungen ist, dass die prozessualen Rechte der Rucknahme und des Anerkenntnisses gesetzlich vorgesehene Rechte der Prozessparteien sind. Sie sind Ausfluss der Dispositionsmaxime. Andererseits wird die Dispositionsmaxime kraft gesetzlicher Anordnung etwa dort eingeschrankt, wo ein besonderes oeffentliches Interesse dem Recht des Einzelnen vorgehen muss. Diese UEberlegungen sind Anknupfungspunkt der Untersuchung, welche die massgeblichen gegenlaufigen Rechtspositionen - Dispositionsfreiheit und besonderes oeffentliches Interesse - darstellt und gewichtet.

While the prohibition of custodial torture is absolute and it applies even during war or other emergency situations, the fact is that custodial torture continues to prevail in today's times of modernization and globalization. The only thing that has changed with time is the degree of meticulousness and sophistication with which it is practiced today. This work analyses custodial violence, ill-treatment, and crimes committed by the police and armed forces in India. It analyses custodial violence in the light of the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Committee against Torture; European Commission; Asian Human Rights Commissions; National Human Rights Commission; National Crime Record Bureau; police journals; international and national NGOs; and other international standards. Providing a detailed overview of the Indian police system and examining its structure and functions, the work critically examines the role and accountability of the police in India and lays emphasis on the human rights of citizens referring to the guidelines of the National Human Rights Commission for the prevention of custodial violence and protection of victims and their rights.