Freedom of Information (FOI) in China is often perceived as a recent and intriguing phenomenon. This book presents a more complex and detailed understanding of the evolution of FOI in China, using information flow analysis to explore the gradual development of government receptivity to FOI in an information environment through time. The book argues that it is necessary to reassess the widely divergent origins of FOI reform in China, and asserts that social, political and legal factors should have central roles in understanding the development of FOI in China. The book uses information flow analysis to find that FOI reform in China formed part of a much longer process of increased transparency in the Chinese information environment, which gradually shifted from the acceptance of proactive disclosure to that of reactive disclosure. FOI thus has become a beneficiary of this gradual transformation of the Chinese information environment.

The field of transitional justice has expanded rapidly since the term first emerged in the late 1990s. Its intellectual development has, however, tended to follow practice rather than drive it. Addressing this gap, Violence, Law and the Impossibility of Transitional Justice pursues a comprehensive theoretical inquiry into the foundation and evolution of transitional justice. Presenting a detailed deconstruction of the role of law in transition, the book explores the reasons for resistance to transitional justice. It explores the ways in which law itself is complicit in perpetuating conflict, and asks whether a narrow vision of transitional justice - underpinned by a strictly normative or doctrinal concept of law - can undermine the promise of justice. Drawing on case material, as well as on perspectives from a range of disciplines, including law, political science, anthropology and philosophy, this book will be of considerable interest to those concerned with the theory and practice of transitional justice.

Using examples from the United States-Mexico border, Central America, and South America, this book argues that forced migration is not a spontaneous phenomenon, but rather a product of necropolitical strategies designed to depopulate resource rich countries or regions. Estevez merges necropolitical analysis with postcolonial migration and offers a new framework to study the set of policies, laws, institutions, and political discourses producing a profit in a legal context in which habitat devastation is legal, but mobility is a crime. Violence, deprivation of food or water, environmental contamination, and rights exclusion are some of the tactics used in extractivist capitalism. Private and state actors alike, use necropower, both its first and third world versions, to make people, living and dead, a commodity.

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.

This multi-disciplinary collection interrogates the role of human rights in addressing past injustices. The volume draws on legal scholars, political scientists, anthropologists and political philosophers grappling with the weight of the memory of historical injustices arising from conflicts in Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. It examines the role of human rights as legal doctrine, rhetoric and policy as developed by states, international organizations, regional groups and non-governmental bodies. The authors question whether faith in human rights is justified as balm to heal past injustice or whether such faith nourishes both victimhood and self-justification. These issues are explored through three discrete sections: moments of memory and injustice, addressing injustice; and questions of faith. In each of these sections, authors address the manner in which memory of past conflicts and injustice haunt our contemporary understanding of human rights. The volume questions whether the expectation that human rights law can deal with past injustice has undermined the development of an emancipatory politics of human rights for our current world.

Very little in the American way of life functions adequately under surveillance. Democracy itself may be at mortal risk due to the loss of privacy and the increase in surveillance. Examining challenges in a wide range of contexts, this book investigates and critically examines our systems of data management, including the ways that data are collected, exchanged, analyzed, and re-purposed. The volume calls for re-establishing personal privacy as a societal norm and priority, requiring action on the part of everyone at personal, societal, business, and governmental levels. Because new media products and services are professionally designed and implemented to be frictionless and highly rewarding, change is difficult and solutions are not easy. This volume provides insight into challenges and recommended solutions.

In both Europe and North America it can be argued that the associational and institutional dimensions of the right to freedom of religion or belief are increasingly coming under pressure. This book demonstrates why a more classical understanding of the idea of a liberal democracy can allow for greater respect for the right to freedom of religion or belief. The book examines the major direction in which liberal democracy has developed over the last fifty years and contends that this is not the most legitimate type of liberal democracy for religiously divided societies. Drawing on theoretical developments in the field of transnational constitutionalism, Hans-Martien ten Napel argues that redirecting the concept and practice of liberal democracy toward the more classical notion of limited, constitutional government, with a considerable degree of autonomy for civil society organizations would allow greater religious pluralism. The book shows how, in a postsecular and multicultural context, modern sources of constitutionalism and democracy, supplemented by premodern, transcendental legitimation, continue to provide the best means of legitimating Western constitutional and political orders.

Continuing large-scale migration to the United States raises the question of how best to integrate new immigrants into the American national community. Traditionally, one successful answer has been to encourage immigrants to learn our language, culture, history, and civic traditions. New immigrants would then be invited become citizens and welcomed as full members of the community. However, a concerted effort is underway to gain acceptance for, and implement, the idea that the United States should allow new immigrants to vote without becoming citizens. It is mounted by an alliance that brings together progressive academics, law professors, local and state political leaders, and community activists, all working to decouple voting from American citizenship. Their effort show signs of success, but is it really in America's best interests to allow new immigrants to have the vote? Their proposals have been much advocated, but little analyzed. Neither a polemic nor a whitewash, Stanley A. Renshon provides a careful analysis of the arguments put forward by advocates of this position on the basis of fairness, increasing democracy, civic learning, and moral necessity and asks: Do they really help immigrants become Americans?

Hate speech law can be found throughout the world. But it is also the subject of numerous principled arguments, both for and against. These principles invoke a host of morally relevant features (e.g., liberty, health, autonomy, security, non-subordination, the absence of oppression, human dignity, the discovery of truth, the acquisition of knowledge, self-realization, human excellence, civic dignity, cultural diversity and choice, recognition of cultural identity, intercultural dialogue, participation in democratic self-government, being subject only to legitimate rule) and practical considerations (e.g., efficacy, the least restrictive alternative, chilling effects). The book develops and then critically examines these various principled arguments. It also attempts to de-homogenize hate speech law into different clusters of laws/regulations/codes that constrain uses of hate speech, so as to facilitate a more nuanced examination of the principled arguments. Finally, it argues that it is morally fitting for judicial and legislative judgments about the overall warrant of hate speech law to reflect principled compromise. Principled compromise is characterized not merely by compromise over matters of principled concern but also by compromise which is itself governed by ideals of moral duty or civic virtue (e.g., reciprocity, equality, and mutual respect).

The present volume focuses on the jurisprudence of national, supranational and international jurisdictions (and quasi-juridictions) as regards the legal "status" of same-sex couples. Its aim is to explore the content, rationale, functioning and potential of the different jurisdictions' reasonings and their contribution to the strengthening of LGBTI rights (and duties). As a consequence, the book tries to convey the complexities and controversies that derive from the judicial recognition of same-sex couples across the world, taking always into account the relationship of the judiciary with the executive and the legislature and the related problems of legitimacy and democracy. The volume deals with this issue and considers it as a crucial test for modern democracies and contemporary societies.

The Human Rights Act 1998 is criticised for providing a weak protection of human rights. The principle of parliamentary legislative supremacy prevents entrenchment, meaning that courts cannot overturn legislation passed after the Act that contradicts Convention rights. This book investigates this assumption, arguing that the principle of parliamentary legislative supremacy is sufficiently flexible to enable a stronger protection of human rights, which can replicate the effect of entrenchment. Nevertheless, it is argued that the current protection should not be strengthened. If correctly interpreted, the Human Rights Act can facilitate democratic dialogue that enables courts to perform their proper correcting function to protect rights from abuse, whilst enabling the legislature to authoritatively determine contestable issues surrounding the extent to which human rights should be protected alongside other rights, interests and goals of a particular society. This understanding of the Human Rights Act also provides a different justification for the preservation of Dicey's conception of parliamentary sovereignty in the UK Constitution.

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.

The right to freedom of religion or belief, as enshrined in international human rights documents, is unique in its formulation in that it provides protection for the enjoyment of the rights "in community with others". This book explores the notion of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief with a view to advance the protection of this right. The book considers Turkey which provides a useful test case where both the domestic legislation can be assessed against international standards, while at the same time lessons can be drawn for the improvement of the standard of international review of the protection of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief. The book asks two main questions: what is the scope and nature of protection afforded to the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief in international law, and, secondly, how does the protection of the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief in Turkey compare and contrast to international standards? In doing so it seeks to identify how the standard of international review of the collective dimension of freedom of religion can be improved.

Human rights have traditionally been framed in a vertical perspective with the duties of States confined to their own citizens or residents. Interpretations of international human rights treaties tend either to ignore or downplay obligations beyond this 'territorial space'. This edited volume challenges the territorial bias of mainstream human rights law. It argues that with increased globalisation and the impact of international corporations, organisations and non-State actors, human rights law will become less relevant if it fails to adapt to changing realities in which States are no longer the only leading actor. Bringing together leading scholars in the field, the book explores potential applications of international human rights law in a multi-duty bearer setting. The first part of the book examines the current state of the human rights obligations of foreign States, corporations and international financial institutions, looking in particular at the ways in which they address questions of attribution and distribution of obligations and responsibility. The second part is geared towards the identification of common principles that may underpin a human rights legal regime that incorporates obligations of foreign States as well as of non-State actors. As a marker of important progress in understanding what lies ahead for integrating foreign States and non-State actors in the human rights dutybearer regime, this book will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of international human rights law, public international law and international relations.

This book offers a unique insight into the role of human rights lawyers in Chinese law and politics. In her extensive account, Eva Pils shows how these practitioners are important as legal advocates for victims of injustice and how bureaucratic systems of control operate to subdue and marginalise them. The book also discusses how human rights lawyers and the social forces they work for and with challenge the system. In conditions where organised political opposition is prohibited, rights lawyers have begun to articulate and coordinate demands for legal and political change. Drawing on hundreds of anonymised conversations, the book analyses in detail human rights lawyers' legal advocacy in the face of severe institutional limitations and their experiences of repression at the hands of the police and state security apparatus, along with the intellectual, political and moral resources lawyers draw upon to survive and resist. Key concerns include the interaction between the lawyers and their bureaucratic, professional and social environments and the forms and long term political impact of resistance. In addressing these issues, Pils offers a rare evaluative perspective on China's legal and political system, and proposes new ways to assess domestic advocacy's relationship with international human rights and rule of law promotion. This book will be of great interest and use to students and scholars of law, Chinese studies, socio-legal studies, political studies, international relations, and sociology. It is also of direct value to people working in the fields of human rights advocacy, law, politics, international relations, and journalism.

The workplace is a key forum in which the issue of religion and its position in the public sphere is under debate. Desires to observe and express religious beliefs in the workplace can introduce conflict between employees and employers. This book addresses the role the law plays in the resolution of these potential conflicts. The book considers the definition and underlying motives of religious expression, and explores the different ways it may impact the workplace. Andrew Hambler identifies principled responses to workplace religious expression within a liberal state and compares this to the law applying in England and Wales and its interpretation by courts and tribunals. The book determines the extent to which freedom of religious expression for the individual enjoys legal protection in the workplace in England and Wales, and asks whether there is a case for changing the law to strengthen that protection. The book will be of great use and interest to scholars and students of religion and the law, employment law, and religion and human rights.

A clear, concise primer on the EU GDPR The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a key piece of legislation that provides a single, harmonised privacy law for the European Union, improving the promotion and regulation of data privacy. With the Regulation now formally approved by the European Parliament, all companies that operate in Europe have until 26 April 2018 to comply with the new law, or potentially face fines of up to 4% of annual turnover or 20 million. This pocket guide is the perfect introduction for organisations that need to get to grips with the key principles of data privacy and the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

'Noncitizenship', if it is considered at all, is generally seen only as the negation or deprivation of citizenship. It is rarely examined in its own right, whether in relation to States, to noncitizens, or citizens. This means that it is difficult to examine successfully the status of noncitizens, obligations towards them, and the nature of their role in political systems. As a result, not only are there theoretical black holes, but also the real world difficulties created as a result of noncitizenship are not currently successfully addressed. In response, Theorising Noncitizenship seeks to define the theoretical challenge that noncitizenship presents and to consider why it should be seen as a foundational concept in social science. The contributions, from leading scholars in the field and across disciplinary backgrounds, capture a diversity of perspectives on the meaning, position and lived experience of noncitizenship. They demonstrate that, we need to look beyond citizenship in order to take noncitizenship seriously and to capture fully the lived realities of the contemporary State system. This book was previously published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

Telling the crucial and under-studied story of the U.S. legal doctrines that underpin the dispossession and domination of Indigenous peoples, this book intends to enhance global Indigenous movements for self-determination. In this wide-ranging historical study of federal Indian law-the field of U.S. law related to Native peoples-attorney and educator Peter P. d'Errico argues that the U.S. government's assertion of absolute prerogative and unlimited authority over Native peoples and their lands is actually a suspension of law. Combining a deep theoretical analysis of the law with a historical examination of its roots in Christian civilization, d'Errico presents a close reading of foundational legal cases and raises the possibility of revoking the doctrine of domination. The book's larger context is the increasing frequency of Indigenous conflicts with nation-states around the world as ecological crises caused by industrial extraction impinge drastically on Indigenous peoples' existences. D'Errico's goal is to rethink the role of law in the global order-to imagine an Indigenous nomos of the earth, an order arising from peoples and places rather than the existing hegemony of states. Combines a deep theoretical analysis of the law with historical perspective Argues that federal Indian law is an exception from regular legal processes Offers a global Indigenous perspective on human civilization Provides analysis from an attorney and educator with decades of experience in federal Indian law

This book, both internally and internationally, determines the constitutionalization and uniformity of law, respectively the overall strengthening of the protection of values of the rule of law. The authors present the mechanisms of institutional cooperation between the Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, the other constitutional courts, the Venice Commission, the Parliament, the President of Romania, the Government, the Advocate of the People, the courts of law and the media.

In 1990, after the end of the Pinochet regime, the newly-elected democratic government of Chile established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate and report on some of the worst human rights violations committed under the seventeen-year military dictatorship. The Chilean TRC was one of the first truth commissions established in the world. This book examines whether and how the work of the Chilean TRC contributed to the transition to democracy in Chile and to subsequent developments in accountability and transformation in that country. The book takes a long term view on the Chilean TRC asking to what extent and how the truth commission contributed to the development of the transitional justice measures that ensued, and how the relationship with those subsequent developments was established over time.It argues that, contrary to the views and expectations of those who considered that the Chilean TRC was of limited success, that the Chilean TRC has, in fact, over the longer term, played a key role as an enabler of justice and a means by which ethical and institutional transformation has occurred within Chile. With the benefit of this historical perspective, the book concludes that the impact of truth commissions in general needs to be carefully reviewed in light of the Chilean experience. This book will be of great interest and use to students and scholars of conflict resolution, criminal international law, and comparative legal systems in Latin America.

The field of transitional justice has expanded rapidly since the term first emerged in the late 1990s. Its intellectual development has, however, tended to follow practice rather than drive it. Addressing this gap, Violence, Law and the Impossibility of Transitional Justice pursues a comprehensive theoretical inquiry into the foundation and evolution of transitional justice. Presenting a detailed deconstruction of the role of law in transition, the book explores the reasons for resistance to transitional justice. It explores the ways in which law itself is complicit in perpetuating conflict, and asks whether a narrow vision of transitional justice - underpinned by a strictly normative or doctrinal concept of law - can undermine the promise of justice. Drawing on case material, as well as on perspectives from a range of disciplines, including law, political science, anthropology and philosophy, this book will be of considerable interest to those concerned with the theory and practice of transitional justice.

This book brings legal and academic perspective to the theory and practice surrounding the right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time. This field of rights has been somewhat neglected academically, a fact which jars with the sheer volume of case law budding from this single, simple, fundamental right, bearing testimony to the widespread concern with delay in judicial proceedings which transcends the boundaries of states or legal systems. The work provides a blueprint for analysing the effectiveness of legal remedies across entire legal systems, as well as in any given individual case. The first part focuses on deriving legal principles from the body of jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, while the second part contains illustrations of the practical application of such principles. The content constitutes essential reading for students, academics, lawyers, judges, practitioners and all those who wish to understand the issue of delay in judicial proceedings, and the legal context of available remedies. The author aims to raise awareness about the human rights issues which come into play when delivery of justice is delayed, and to provide both an academic and practical reference.

Commentators on the media in Southeast Asia either emphasise with optimism the prospect for new media to provide possibilities for greater democratic discourse, or else, less optimistically, focus on the continuing ability of governments to exercise tight and sophisticated control of the media. This book explores these issues with reference to Malaysia and Singapore. It analyses how journalists monitor governments and cover elections, discussing what difference journalism makes; it examines citizen journalism, and the constraints on it, often self-imposed constraints; and it assesses how governments control the media, including outlining the development and current application of legal restrictions.

This book explores the role human rights law plays in the formation, and protection, of our personal identities. Drawing from a range of disciplines, Jill Marshall examines how human rights law includes and excludes specific types of identity, which feed into moral norms of human freedom and human dignity and their translation into legal rights. The book takes on a three part structure. Part I traces the definition of identity, and follows the evolution of, and protects, a right to personal identity and personality within human rights law. It specifically examines the development of a right to personal identity as property, the inter-subjective nature of identity, and the intercession of power and inequality. Part II evaluates past and contemporary attempts to describe the core of personal identity, including theories concerning the soul, the rational mind, and the growing influence of neuroscience and genetics in explaining what it means to be human. It also explores the inter-relation and conflict between universal principles and culturally specific rights. Part III focuses on issues and case law that can be interpreted as allowing self-determination. Marshall argues that while in an age of individual identity, people are increasingly obliged to live in conformed ways, pushing out identities that do not fit with what is acceptable. Drawing on feminist theory, the book concludes by arguing how human rights law would be better interpreted as a force to enable respect for human dignity and freedom, interpreted as empowerment and self-determination whilst acknowledging our inter-subjective identities. In drawing on socio-legal, philosophical, biological and feminist outlooks, this book is truly interdisciplinary, and will be of great interest and use to scholars and students of human rights law, legal and social theory, gender and cultural studies.