The complex legal situations arising from the coexistence of international law, state law, and social and religious norms in different parts of the world often include scenarios of conflict between them. These conflicting norms issued from different categories of 'laws' result in difficulties in describing, identifying and analysing human rights in plural environments. This volume studies how normative conflicts unfold when trapped in the aspirations of human rights and their local realizations. It reflects on how such tensions can be eased, while observing how and why they occur. The authors examine how obedience or resistance to the official law is generated through the interaction of a multiplicity of conflicting norms, interpretations and practices. Emphasis is placed on the actors involved in raising or decreasing the tension surrounding the conflict and the implications that the conflict carries, whether resolved or not, in conditions of asymmetric power movements. It is argued that legal responsiveness to state law depends on how people with different identities deal with it, narrate it and build expectations from it, bearing in mind that normative pluralism may also operate as an instrument towards the exclusion of certain communities from the public sphere. The chapters look particularly to expose the dialogue between parallel normative spheres in order for law to become more effective, while investigating the types of socio-legal variables that affect the functioning of law, leading to conflicts between rights, values and entire cultural frames.

The US led programme of extraordinary rendition created profound challenges for the international system of human rights protection and rule of law. This book examines the efforts of authorities in Europe and the US to re-establish rule of law and respect for human rights through the investigation of the program and its outcomes. The contributions to this volume examine the supranational and national inquiries into the US CIA-led extraordinary rendition and secret detention programme in Europe. The book takes as a starting point two recent and far-reaching developments in delivering accountability and establishing the truth: First, the publication of the executive summary of the US Senate Intelligence Committee (Feinstein) Report, and second, various European Court of Human Rights judgments regarding the complicity of several state parties and the incompatibility of those actions with the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). The collective volume provides the first stock-taking review of the state of affairs in the quest for accountability, and identifies significant obstacles in going even further -- as international law demands. It will be vital reading for students and scholars in a wide range of areas, including international relations, international law, public policy and counter-terrorism studies.

How can we understand and contest the global wave of violence against women? In this book, Alison Brysk shows that gender violence across countries tends to change as countries develop and liberalize, but not in the ways that we might predict. She shows how liberalizing authoritarian countries and transitional democracies may experience more shifting patterns and greater levels of violence than less developed and democratic countries, due to changes and uncertainties in economic and political structures. Accordingly, Brysk analyzes the experience of semi-liberal, developing countries at the frontiers of globalization-Brazil, India, South Africa, Mexico, the Philippines, and Turkey-to map out patterns of gender violence and what can be done to change those patterns. As the book shows, gender violence is not static, nor can it be attributed to culture or individual pathology-rather it varies across a continuum that tracks economic, political, and social change. While a combination of international action, law, public policy, civil society mobilization, and changes in social values work to decrease gender violence, Brysk assesses the potential, limits, and balance of these measures. Brysk shows that a human rights approach is necessary but not sufficient to address gender violence, and that insights from feminist and development approaches are essential.

The law of defamation contemplates the clash of two fundamental rights: the right to freedom of expression, including freedom of the media, and the right to reputation. The rules of defamation law are designed to mediate between these two rights. The central proposition that this book makes is that defamation law needs to be reformed to balance the conflicting rights. This discussion flows from a theoretical analysis of the rights in issue; the value underlying the right to reputation that has most resonance is human dignity, while the value that is most apposite to freedom of expression in this context is the argument that free speech is integral to democracy. The argument from democracy emphasizes that speech on matters of public interest should receive greater protection than private speech. This book argues that fundamental rules of defamation law need to be reformed to take into account the dual importance of public interest speech on the one hand, and the right to human dignity on the other. In particular, the presumptions that defamatory allegations are false and have caused damage, the principle of strict liability to primary publishers and negligence liability to secondary publishers, and the availability of punitive damages, should not survive constitutional scrutiny. The quantum of damages and costs rules, and the remedies available in defamation cases, should also be reformed to reflect the importance of dignity to the claimant, and the free speech interest of the public in receiving accurate information on matters of public interest.

The three Abrahamic faiths have dominated religious conversations for millennia but the relations between state and religion are in a constant state of flux. This relationship may be configured in a number of ways. Religious norms may be enforced by the state as part of a regime of personal law or, conversely, religious norms may be formally relegated to the private sphere but can be brought into the legal realm through the private acts of individuals. Enhanced recognition of religious tribunals or religious doctrines by civil courts may create a hybrid of these two models. One of the major issues in the reconciliation of changing civic ideals with religious tenets is gender equality, and this is an ongoing challenge in both domestic and international affairs. Examining this conflict within the context of a range of issues including marriage and divorce, violence against women and children, and women's political participation, this collection brings together a discussion of the Abrahamic religions to examine the role of religion in the struggle for women's equality around the world. The book encompasses both theory and practical examples of how law can be used to negotiate between claims for gender equality and the right to religion. It engages with international and regional human rights norms and also national considerations within countries. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in law and religion, gender studies and human rights law.

Surveillance of citizens is a clear manifestation of government power. The act of surveillance is generally deemed acceptable in a democratic society where it is necessary to protect the interests of the nation and where the power is exercised non-arbitrarily and in accordance with the law. Surveillance and the Law analyses the core features of surveillance that create stark challenges for transparency and accountability by examining the relationship between language, power, and surveillance. It identifies a number of features of surveillance law, surveillance language, and the distribution of power that perpetuate the existing surveillance paradigm. Using case studies from the US, the UK, and Ireland, it assesses the techniques used to maintain the status quo of continued surveillance expansion. These jurisdictions are selected for their similarities, but also for their key constitutional distinctions, which influence how power is distributed and restrained in the different systems. Though the book maintains that the classic principles of transparency and accountability remain the best means available to limit the arbitrary exercise of government power, it evaluates how these principles could be better realised in order to restore power to the people and to maintain an appropriate balance between government intrusion and the right to privacy. By identifying the common tactics used in the expansion of surveillance around the globe, this book will appeal to students and scholars interested in privacy law, human rights, information technology law, and surveillance studies.

Since 2005, approximately 70,000 asylum-seeking refugees from Sudan and Eritrea have entered Israel. This, along with the highly publicised anti-African immigrant riots in Israel in 2012 and 2014 and the current global refugee crisis, has meant that the issue of African migration has become increasingly controversial. Here Gilad Ben-Nun looks at this phenomenon in its historical and contemporary contexts, and compares it to the wider debates surrounding the Palestinian refugees in the region and the concept of their right of return. He argues that this newer, African migration issue has forced Israel to move from conceiving of itself as an 'exceptional' state and now has to view itself as a more 'normal' and 'universal' entity. Ranging as far back as Israel's important role in the the ratification drafting of the 1951 Refugee Convention and drawing on a variety of methodologies and sources, Ben-Nun offers a wide-ranging legal, social and historical examination of asylum in Israel, that sheds timely light onto themes of migration and identity across the Middle East. This is essential reading for legal historians and lawyers, as well as scholars working on migration studies and the history and politics of the Middle East.

Black Americans continue to lag behind on many measures of social and economic well-being. Conventional wisdom holds that these inequalities can only be eliminated by eradicating racism and providing well-funded social programs. In Race, Wrongs, and Remedies, Amy L. Wax applies concepts from the law of remedies to show that the conventional wisdom is mistaken. She argues that effectively addressing today's persistent racial disparities requires dispelling the confusion surrounding blacks' own role in achieving equality. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that discrimination against blacks has dramatically abated. The most important factors now impeding black progress are behavioral: low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, drug use, criminality, paternal abandonment, and non-marital childbearing. Although these maladaptive patterns are largely the outgrowth of past discrimination and oppression, they now largely resist correction by government programs or outside interventions. Wax asserts that the black community must solve these problems from within. Self-help, changed habits, and a new cultural outlook are, in fact, the only effective tactics for eliminating the present vestiges of our nation's racist past. Published in cooperation with the Hoover Institution

During a 1931 trial of four Nazi stormtroopers, known as the Eden Dance Palace trial, Hans Litten grilled Hitler in a brilliant and merciless three-hour cross-examination, forcing him into multiple contradictions and evasions and finally reducing him to helpless and humiliating rage (the transcription of Hitler's full testimony is included.) At the time, Hitler was still trying to prove his embrace of legal methods, and distancing himself from his stormtroopers. The courageous Litten revealed his true intentions, and in the process, posed a real threat to Nazi ambition.
When the Nazis seized power two years after the trial, friends and family urged Litten to flee the country. He stayed and was sent to the concentration camps, where he worked on translations of medieval German poetry, shared the money and food he was sent by his wealthy family, and taught working-class inmates about art and literature. When Jewish prisoners at Dachau were locked in their barracks for weeks at a time, Litten kept them sane by reciting great works from memory. After five years of torture and hard labor-and a daring escape that failed-Litten gave up hope of survival. His story was ultimately tragic but, as Benjamin Hett writes in this gripping narrative, it is also redemptive. "It is a story of human nobility in the face of barbarism."
The first full-length biography of Litten, the book also explores the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic and the terror of Nazi rule in Germany after 1933. [in sidebar] Winner of the 2007 Fraenkel Prize for outstanding work of contemporary history, in manuscript. To be published throughout the world.

The Educational Lockout of African Americans in Prince Edward County, Virginia (1959-1964): Personal Accounts and Reflections provides ground-breaking research on the historical events surrounding the Prince Edward County's school closings. For five years (1959-1964), the families of 1,700 African American students were forced to cope with the absence of public schooling in the county. Their efforts led to the case Davis v. the County School Board of Prince Edward County, which was one of the cases that were consolidated with Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The book offers the reader two exciting sections. In the first section, the contributing authors provide interesting findings on Grassroots schools, the Kennedy administration, and an African American movement during the Prince Edward County school closings. In the second section, the authors provide the reader with personal reflections and a lecture from four professors whose parents were affected by the Prince Edward County lockout. Three of the four professors were graduates of the Prince Edward County school system.

This book examines American solitary confinement - in which around 100,000 prisoners are held at any one time - and argues that under a moral reading of individual rights such punishment is not only a matter of public interest, but requires close constitutional scrutiny. While Eighth Amendment precedent has otherwise experienced a generational fixation on the death penalty, this book argues that such scrutiny must be extended to the hidden corners of the US prison system. Despite significant reforms to capital sentencing by the executive and legislative branches, Eastaugh shows how the American prison system as a whole has escaped meaningful judicial oversight. Drawing on a wide range of socio-political contexts in order to breathe meaning into the moral principles underlying the punishments clause, the study includes an extensive review of professional (medico-legal) consensus and comparative transnational human rights standards united against prolonged solitary confinement. Ultimately, Eastaugh argues that this practice is unconstitutional. An informed and empowering text, this book will be of particular interest to scholars of law, punishment, and the criminal justice system.

The European Union has committed itself to combating racism as a general objective of law and policy. EU legislation requires Member States to introduce laws prohibiting racial discrimination in many aspects of everyday life, including employment, education, healthcare, and housing. Alongside legislation requiring action at national level, the EU institutions have also made periodic commitments to 'mainstream' racial equality: taking anti-racism objectives into account within all areas of EU law and policy.
This book analyses the extent to which the objectives of combating racism and promoting ethnic equality have been effectively mainstreamed throughout a wide range of EU policy fields. It begins by considering what combating racism means in the contemporary context of the enlarged EU. Bell explores what mainstreaming ethnic equality objectives entails, and whether the priorities and instruments differ from those adopted in the earlier mainstreaming of gender equality, or those used on other discrimination grounds. The second part of the book examines the extent to which EU law and policy objectives have, in practice, been integrated, exploring the effects in the key areas of employment, social inclusion (including education, health and housing), immigration, and criminal law.

Chief Justice John Marshall argued that a constitution "requires that only its great outlines should be marked and] its important objects designated." Ours is "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs." In recent years, Marshall's great truths have been challenged by proponents of originalism and strict construction. Such legal thinkers as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argue that the Constitution must be construed and applied as it was when the Framers wrote it.
In Keeping Faith with the Constitution, three legal authorities make the case for Marshall's vision. They describe their approach as "constitutional fidelity"--not to how the Framers would have applied the Constitution, but to the text and principles of the Constitution itself. The original understanding of the text is one source of interpretation, but not the only one; to preserve the meaning and authority of the document, to keep it vital, applications of the Constitution must be shaped by precedent, historical experience, practical consequence, and societal change. The authors range across the history of constitutional interpretation to show how this approach has been the source of our greatest advances, from Brown v. Board of Education to the New Deal, from the Miranda decision to the expansion of women's rights. They delve into the complexities of voting rights, the malapportionment of legislative districts, speech freedoms, civil liberties and the War on Terror, and the evolution of checks and balances.
The Constitution's framers could never have imagined DNA, global warming, or even women's equality. Yet these and many more realities shape our lives and outlook. Our Constitution will remain vital into our changing future, the authors write, if judges remain true to this rich tradition of adaptation and fidelity.

This book examines the fundamental question of how legislators and other rule-makers should handle remembering and forgetting information (especially personally identifiable information) in the digital age. It encompasses such topics as privacy, data protection, individual and collective memory, and the right to be forgotten when considering data storage, processing and deletion. The authors argue in support of maintaining the new digital default, that (personally identifiable) information should be remembered rather than forgotten. The book offers guidelines for legislators as well as private and public organizations on how to make decisions on remembering and forgetting personally identifiable information in the digital age. It draws on three main perspectives: law, based on a comprehensive analysis of Swiss law that serves as an example; technology, specifically search engines, internet archives, social media and the mobile internet; and an interdisciplinary perspective with contributions from various disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics, amongst others.. Thanks to this multifaceted approach, readers will benefit from a holistic view of the informational phenomenon of "remembering and forgetting". This book will appeal to lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, historians, economists, anthropologists, and psychologists among many others. Such wide appeal is due to its rich and interdisciplinary approach to the challenges for individuals and society at large with regard to remembering and forgetting in the digital age.

The first part of the book reviews the multi-level system of protection currently operating in Europe and its constitutional implications. The Charter is analysed from a legal, political and practical standpoint. The activity of the European Parliament as a fundamental rights actor will also be examined, as well as the right to a fair trial and to effective judicial protection before and by the EU Courts. The second part of the volume addresses the impact of a binding Charter on specific areas of EU Law. The order in which the contributions have been set out reflects the structure of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union: free circulation of persons; the internal market; the area of freedom security and justice (civil and criminal aspects); social rights protection; environmental policy; enlargement; international trade and the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Examining the twelve-decade legal conflict of government bans on religious garb worn by teachers in U.S. public schools, this book provides comprehensive documentation and analysis of the historical origins and subsequent development of teachers' religious garb in relation to contemporary legal challenges within the United Nations and the European Union. By identifying and correcting factual errors in the literature about historical bans on teachers' garb, Walker demonstrates that there are still substantial and unresolved legal questions to the constitutionality of state garb statutes and reflects on how the contemporary conflicts are historically rooted. Showcased through a wealth of laws and case studies, this book is divided into eight clear and concise chapters and answers questions such as: what are anti-religious-garb laws?; how have the state and federal court decisions evolved?; what are the constitutional standards?; what are the establishment clause and free exercise clause arguments?; and how has this impacted current debates on teachers' religious garb?, before concluding with an informative summary of the points discussed throughout. The First Amendment and State Bans on Teachers' Religious Garb is the ideal resource for researchers, academics, and postgraduate students in the fields of education, religion, education policy, sociology of education, and law, or those looking to explore an in-depth development of the laws and debates surrounding teachers' religious garb within the last 125 years.

This book is a broad-ranging argument for thorough reforms at home and abroad in Nigeria as the only antidote to the nation-building dilemmas Nigeria confronts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Because of its enormous material and human endowments, Nigeria is dubbed the "Giant of Africa." It is a moniker many of its leaders take seriously. Yet, Nigeria is a state rife with instability, some of it periodically erupting into violence. Given still-ongoing national security challenges in the land that notoriously includes a bloody religion-oriented terrorism, the Fourth Republic since 1999, the longest period of continuous democratic rule since independence-key to the timeline of this book-has not been insulated from the spell of instability. The main argument of this work is that internationally agreed-upon ethical standards embedded in human rights can save Nigeria. This book is a methodologically and theoretically-grounded, seminal discourse on Nigerian foreign relations that spells out the human rights or lack thereof in those relations, including underlying and impinging domestic forces. This work is set around six issues of application embedded in a temple of Nigeria's human rights foreign policy, comprising two steps and four pillars: reconstructed national interest, increased human rights at home, redesigned peacekeeping, reshaped foreign policy machinery, increased bilateralism in foreign relations, and the use of ECOWAS as human rights tool. Although focused on the period since independence, for proper understanding of events from the past that shape the current patterns of politics in the land, this book also embodies a historical background chapter that overviews the pre-colonial and colonial eras.

First published in 2006, this book brings together some of the most innovative and important research on civil rights law and legality, this book draws on narratives of individuals from a variety of contexts to provide a rich and contextualized understanding of what happens when law interacts with other competing systems or forms of social organization. By privileging the real world experiences of those most influenced by rights, the collection moves beyond the traditional polarizing debates and presents a constitutive approach to rights that is not reducible to a simple 'for or against' rights formula. While this complex consciousness approach often contributes to the reproduction of dominant-subordinate social relations, it also allows for spaces of resisting existing hierarchical structures embedded in various law-related sites.

The European Convention on Human Rights is one of the world's most important and influential human rights documents. It owes its value mainly to the European Court of Human Rights, which applies the Convention rights in individual cases. This book offers insight into the concepts and principles that are key to understanding the European Convention and the Court's case law. It explains how the Court approaches its cases and its decision-making process, illustrated by numerous examples taken from the Court's judgments. Core issues discussed include types of Convention rights (such as absolute rights); the structure of the Court's Convention rights review; principles and methods of interpretation (such as common-ground interpretation and the use of precedent); positive and negative obligations; vertical and horizontal effect; the margin of appreciation doctrine; and the requirements for the restriction of Convention rights.

In many countries today there is a growing and genuinely-held concern that the institutional arrangements for the protection of human rights suffer from a 'democratic deficit'. Yet at the same time there appears to be a new consensus that human rights require legal protection and that all branches of the state have a shared responsibility for upholding and realising those legally protected rights. This volume of essays tries to understand this paradox by considering how parliaments have sought to discharge their responsibility to protect human rights. Contributors seek to take stock of the extent to which national and sub-national parliaments have developed legislative review for human rights compatibility, and the effect of international initiatives to increase the role of parliaments in relation to human rights. They also consider the relationship between legislative review and judicial review for human rights compatibility, and whether courts could do more to incentivise better democratic deliberation about human rights. Enhancing the role of parliaments in the protection and realisation of human rights emerges as an idea whose time has come, but the volume makes clear that there is a great deal more to do in all parliaments to develop the institutional structures, processes and mechanisms necessary to put human rights at the centre of their function of making law and holding the government to account. The sense of democratic deficit is unlikely to dissipate unless parliaments empower themselves by exercising the considerable powers and responsibilities they already have to interpret and apply human rights law, and courts in turn pay closer attention to that reasoned consideration. 'I believe that this book will be of enormous value to all of those interested in human rights, in modern legislatures, and the relationship between the two. As this is absolutely fundamental to the characterand credibility of democracy, academic insight of this sort is especially welcome. This is an area where I expect there to be an ever expanding community of interest.' From the Foreword by the Rt Hon John Bercow MP, Speaker of the House of Commons

Questions of religious liberty have become flashpoints of controversy in virtually every area of life around the world. Despite the protection of religious liberty at both national and supranational levels, there is an increasing number of conflicts concerning the proper way to recognize it - both in modern secular states and in countries with an established religion or theocratic mode of government. This book provides an analysis of the general concept of religious liberty along with a close study of important cases that can serve as test beds for conflict resolution proposals. It combines the insights of both pure academics and experienced legal practitioners to take a fresh look at the nature, scope and limits of religious liberty. Divided into two parts, the collection presents a blend of legal and philosophical approaches, and draws on cases from a wide range of jurisdictions, including Brazil, India, Australia, the USA, the Netherlands, and Canada. Presenting a broad range of views, this often provocative volume makes for fascinating reading for academics and researchers working in the areas of law and religion, legal philosophy and human rights.

Privacy, in human history, is a relatively recent concept. Nobody had much privacy in the Middle Ages. Even kings and queens lacked privacy: it was an age when crowds watched a queen give birth, and the king received visitors while on the chamber pot. Technology and concepts of privacy grew up together-as both friends and enemies. For example, the late 19th century invention of the candid camera made it possible, for the first time, to take someone's picture without that person's consent. This fact was in the background of the classic article by Warren and Brandeis that launched the right of privacy. Today, we have smart phones with cameras, selfies, the Internet, surveillance cameras, and tools that can look through walls, smell through walls, see through walls. Dangers to privacy have multiplied enormously, and we have only just begin figuring how to handle the change. This book is timely as our basic understandings of privacy are challenged by modern technology, changing social mores, and evolving legal understandings that both reflect and reinforce underlying changes in society. It is likely to be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students, scholars, and potentially other professionals with an interest in law and social norms.

This collection sets about untangling some of the knotty issues in the underexplored relationship between human rights and the media. We investigate how complex debates in political, judicial, academic and public life on the role and value of human rights are represented in the media, particularly, in print journalism. To focus the discussion, we concentrate on media representation of the controversial proposals in the United Kingdom to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and to replace it with a British Bill of Rights. The collection is underpinned by the observation that views on human rights and on the proposals to repeal and replace are polarised. On the one hand, human rights are presented as threatening and, therefore, utterly denigrated; on the other hand, human rights are idolised, and, therefore, uncritically celebrated. This is the 'fear and fetish' in our title. The media plays a decisive role in constructing this polarity through its representation of political and ideological viewpoints. In order to get to grips with the fear, the fetish and this complex interrelationship, the collection tackles key contemporary themes, amongst them: the proposed British Bill of Rights, Brexit, prisoner-voting, the demonisation of immigrants, press freedom, tabloid misreporting, trial by media and Magna Carta. The collection explores media representation, investigates media polarity and critiques the media's role.