With a new and comprehensive account of the South African Constitutional Court's social rights decisions, Brian Ray argues that the Court's procedural enforcement approach has had significant but underappreciated effects on law and policy, and challenges the view that a stronger substantive standard of review is necessary to realize these rights. Drawing connections between the Court's widely acclaimed early decisions and the more recent second-wave cases, Ray explains that the Court has responded to the democratic legitimacy and institutional competence concerns that consistently constrain it by developing doctrines and remedial techniques that enable activists, civil society and local communities to press directly for rights-protective policies through structured, court-managed engagement processes. Engaging with Social Rights shows how those tools could be developed to make state institutions responsive to the needs of poor communities by giving those communities and their advocates consistent access to policy-making and planning processes.

This volume presents a timely analysis of some of the current controversies relating to freedom for religion and freedom from religion that have dominated headlines worldwide. The collection trains the lens closely on select issues and contexts to provide detailed snapshots of the ways in which freedom for and from religion are conceptualized, protected, neglected, and negotiated in diverse situations and locations. A broad range of issues including migration, education, the public space, prisons and healthcare are discussed drawing examples from Europe, the US, Asia, Africa and South America. Including contributions from leading experts in the field, the book will be essential reading for researchers and policy-makers interested in Law and Religion.

The remarkable story of the innovative legal strategies Native Americans have used to protect their religious rights From North Dakota's Standing Rock encampments to Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Native Americans have repeatedly asserted legal rights to religious freedom to protect their sacred places, practices, objects, knowledge, and ancestral remains. But these claims have met with little success in court because Native American communal traditions don't fit easily into modern Western definitions of religion. In Defend the Sacred, Michael McNally explores how, in response to this situation, Native peoples have creatively turned to other legal means to safeguard what matters to them. To articulate their claims, Native peoples have resourcefully used the languages of cultural resources under environmental and historic preservation law; of sovereignty under treaty-based federal Indian law; and, increasingly, of Indigenous rights under international human rights law. Along the way, Native nations still draw on the rhetorical power of religious freedom to gain legislative and regulatory successes beyond the First Amendment. The story of Native American advocates and their struggle to protect their liberties, Defend the Sacred casts new light on discussions of religious freedom, cultural resource management, and the vitality of Indigenous religions today.

Private companies exert considerable control over the flow of information on the internet. Whether users are finding information with a search engine, communicating on a social networking site or accessing the internet through an ISP, access to participation can be blocked, channelled, edited or personalised. Such gatekeepers are powerful forces in facilitating or hindering freedom of expression online. This is problematic for a human rights system which has historically treated human rights as a government responsibility, and this is compounded by the largely light-touch regulatory approach to the internet in the West. Regulating Speech in Cyberspace explores how these gatekeepers operate at the intersection of three fields of study: regulation (more broadly, law), corporate social responsibility and human rights. It proposes an alternative corporate governance model for speech regulation, one that acts as a template for the increasingly common use of non-state-based models of governance for human rights.

While every constitution includes a provision over the right to equal protection of the laws, perhaps with different terminology, this book interprets this right in a new way. Theories of the right to equal protection of the laws as the right to anti-subordination are the most influential theories on the theory suggested by Drymiotou. Elena Drymiotou suggests understanding the right to equal protection of the laws in terms of belonging. She goes on to identify certain criteria and she offers a general theory of the Right to Democratic Belonging. This book uses political theory, constitutional provisions and case law to suggest this new theory of the right to equal protection of the laws; the theory of the Right to Equal Belonging in a Democratic Society or in other words, the Right to Democratic Belonging. Human Rights and Equal Belonging in a Democratic Society is the starting point of a more comprehensive theory of the right to democratic belonging. It will be of interest both to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It addresses the topics with regard to human rights and equality and will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers and students in the fields of human rights law, constitutional law and legal theory.

Domestic constitutions and courts applying international human rights conventions acknowledge the significance of the mass media for a democratic society, not only by granting special privileges but also by imposing enhanced duties and responsibilities to journalists and media companies. However, the challenges of media convergence, media ownership concentration and the internet have led to legal uncertainty. Should media privileges be maintained, and, if so, how is 'the media' to be defined? To what extent does media freedom as a legal concept also encompass bloggers who have not undertaken journalistic education? And how can a legal distinction be drawn between investigative journalism on the one hand and reporting on purely private matters on the other? To answer these questions, Jan Oster combines doctrinal and conceptual comparative analysis with descriptive and normative theory, and argues in favour of a media freedom principle based on the significance of the media for public discourse.

This book is a challenging, thought-provoking yet highly accessible introduction to discrimination law. It takes a thematic approach, illuminating the major issues in discrimination law, while imparting an in-depth understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of legal responses to complex social problems of inequality. This is enhanced by the comparative approach. By considering equality law in the UK, US, India, Canada, and South Africa, as well as the European Union and under the European Convention on Human Rights, the book exposes common problems across different jurisdictions and canvasses a variety of differing solutions. As in the highly successful previous editions, the book locates discrimination law within its historical and social context. One of its major strengths is the development of an analytic framework of substantive equality, drawing on a range of sources, and the author's wide experience of equality law in many jurisdictions. As well as chapters charting the social challenges and legal responses, the book compares the ways in which different jurisdictions formulate grounds of discrimination or protected characteristics; the meaning of key concepts such as direct discrimination (disparate treatment); indirect discrimination (disparate impact); and when limitations on equality are legitimate. Later chapters test these concepts in some of the most challenging contexts: pregnancy and parenting, equal pay, reasonable accommodation, and sexual harassment; as well as to the particularly controversial issue of affirmative action or deliberate preference policies. Discussing at length how racisms, sexism, LGBTQ+ rights, and other topics impact these contexts. The final chapter asks how the right to equality can be made more effective, critically assessing the paradigm individual complaints model, and possible alternatives, from class actions and strategic litigation to mainstreaming and positive duties to promote equality.

In A Third Way, Hillary Hoffmann and Monte Mills detail the history, context, and future of the ongoing legal fight to protect indigenous cultures. At the federal level, this fight is shaped by the assumptions that led to current federal cultural protection laws, which many tribes and their allies are now reframing to better meet their cultural and sovereign priorities. At the state level, centuries of antipathy toward tribes are beginning to give way to collaborative and cooperative efforts that better reflect indigenous interests. Most critically, tribes themselves are building laws and legal structures that reflect and invigorate their own cultural values. Taken together, and evidenced by the recent worldwide support for indigenous cultural movements, events of the last decade signal a new era for indigenous cultural protection. This important work should be read by anyone interested in the legal reforms that will guide progress toward that future.

Over the last twenty years, India has enacted legislation to turn development goals such as food security, primary education, and employment into legal rights for its citizens. But enacting laws is different from implementing them. A Human Rights Based Approach to Development in India examines a diverse range of human development issues over a period of rapid economic growth in India. Demonstrating why institutional and economic development are synonymous, this volume details the many obstacles hindering development. The contributors ultimately ask whether India's approach to development is working and whether its right to develop is at odds with its international commitments.

Is there still a right to seek asylum in a globalised world? Migration control has increasingly moved to the high seas or the territory of transit and origin countries, and is now commonly outsourced to private actors. Under threat of financial penalties airlines today reject any passenger not in possession of a valid visa, and private contractors are used to run detention centres and man border crossings. In this volume Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen examines the impact of these new practices for refugees' access to asylum. A systematic analysis is provided of the reach and limits of international refugee law when migration control is carried out extraterritorially or by non-state actors. State practice from around the globe and case law from all the major human rights institutions is discussed. The arguments are further linked to wider debates in human rights, general international law and political science.

Court of Injustice reveals how immigration lawyers work to achieve just results for their clients in a system that has long denigrated the rights of those they serve. J.C. Salyer specifically investigates immigration enforcement in New York City, following individual migrants, their lawyers, and the NGOs that serve them into the immigration courtrooms that decide their cases. This book is an account of the effects of the implementation of U.S. immigration law and policy. Salyer engages directly with the specific laws and procedures that mandate harsh and inhumane outcomes for migrants and their families. Combining anthropological and legal analysis, Salyer demonstrates the economic, historical, political, and social elements that go into constructing inequity under law for millions of non-citizens who live and work in the United States. Drawing on both ethnographic research conducted in New York City and on the author's knowledge and experience as a practicing immigration lawyer at a non-profit organization, this book provides unique insight into the workings and effects of U.S. immigration law. Court of Injustice provides an up-close view of the experiences of immigration lawyers at non-profit organizations, in law school clinics, and in private practice to reveal limitations and possibilities available to non-citizens under U.S. immigration law. In this way, this book provides a new perspective on the study of migration by focusing specifically on the laws, courts, and people involved in U.S. immigration law.

This book critically assesses categorical divisions between indigenous individual and collective rights regimes embedded in the foundations of international human rights law. Both conceptual ambiguities and practice-related difficulties arising in vernacularisation processes point to the need of deeper reflection. Internal power struggles, vulnerabilities and intra-group inequalities go unnoticed in that context, leaving persisting forms of neo-colonialism, neo-liberalism and patriarchalism largely untouched. This is to the detriment of groups within indigenous communities such as women, the elderly or young people, alongside intergenerational rights representing considerable intersectional claims and agendas. Integrating legal theoretical, political, socio-legal and anthropological perspectives, this book disentangles indigenous rights frameworks in the particular case of peremptory norms whenever these reflect both individual and collective rights dimensions. Further-reaching conclusions are drawn for groups 'in between', different formations of minority groups demanding rights on their own terms. Particular absolute norms provide insights into such interplay transcending individual and collective frameworks. As one of the founding constitutive elements of indigenous collective frameworks, indigenous peoples' right to prior consultation exemplifies what we could describe as exerting a cumulative, spill-over and transcending effect. Related debates concerning participation and self-determination thereby gain salience in a complex web of players and interests at stake. Self-determination thereby assumes yet another dimension, namely as an umbrella tool of resistance enabling indigenous cosmovisions to materialise in the light of persisting patterns of epistemological oppression. Using a theoretical approach to close the supposed gap between indigenous rights frameworks informed by empirical insights from Bolivia, the Andes and Latin America, the book sheds light on developments in the African and European human rights systems.

Since the Second World War, the international community has sought to prevent the repetition of destructive far-right forces by establishing institutions such as the United Nations and by adopting documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Jurisprudence and conventions directly prohibit far-right speech and expression. Nevertheless, recently, violent far-right entities, such as Golden Dawn of Greece, have received unprecedented electoral support, xenophobic parties have done spectacularly well in elections; and countries such as Hungary and Poland are being led by right-wing populists who are bringing constitutional upheaval and violating basic elements of doctrines such as the rule of law. In light of this current reality, this book critically assesses the international and European tools available for States to regulate the far-right. It conducts the analysis through a militant democracy lens. This doctrine has been considered in several arenas as a concept more generally; in the sphere of the European Convention on Human Rights; in relation to particular freedoms, such as that of association; and as a tool for challenging the far-right movement through the spectrum of political science. However, this doctrine has not yet been applied within a legal assessment of challenging the far-right as a single entity. After analysing the aims, objectives, scope and possibility of shortcomings in international and European law, the book looks at what state obligations arise from these laws. It then assesses how freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of association and freedom of assembly are provided for in international and European law and explores what limitation grounds exist which are directly relevant to the regulation of the far-right. The issue of the far-right is a pressing one on the agenda of politicians, academics, civil society and other groups in Europe and beyond. As such, this book will appeal to those with an interest in International, European or Human rights Law and political science.

The embrace of socio-economic rights in South Africa has featured prominently in scholarship on constitution making, legal jurisprudence and social mobilisation. But the development has attracted critics who claim that this turn to rights has not generated social transformation in practice. This book sets out to assess one part of the puzzle and asks what has been the role and impact of socio-economic strategies used by civil society actors. Focusing on a range of socio-economic rights and national trends in law and political economy, the book's authors show how socio-economic rights have influenced the development of civil society discourse and action. The evidence suggests that some strategies have achieved material and political impact but this is conditional on the nature of the claim, degree of mobilisation and alliance building, and underlying constraints.

Migrant Crossings examines the experiences and representations of Asian and Latina/o migrants trafficked in the United States into informal economies and service industries. Through sociolegal and media analysis of court records, press releases, law enforcement campaigns, film representations, theatre performances, and the law, Annie Isabel Fukushima questions how we understand victimhood, criminality, citizenship, and legality. Fukushima examines how migrants legally cross into visibility, through frames of citizenship, and narratives of victimhood. She explores the interdisciplinary framing of the role of the law and the legal system, the notion of "perfect victimhood", and iconic victims, and how trafficking subjects are resurrected for contemporary movements as illustrated in visuals, discourse, court records, and policy. Migrant Crossings deeply interrogates what it means to bear witness to migration in these migratory times-and what such migrant crossings mean for subjects who experience violence during or after their crossing.

About one-third of the world's population currently lives under pluri-legal systems where governments hold individuals subject to the purview of ethno-religious rather than national norms in respect to family law. How does the state-enforcement of these religious family laws impact fundamental rights and liberties? What resistance strategies do people employ in order to overcome the disabilities and limitations these religious laws impose upon their rights? Based on archival research, court observations and interviews with individuals from three countries, Yuksel Sezgin shows that governments have often intervened in order to impress a particular image of subjectivity upon a society, while people have constantly challenged the interpretive monopoly of courts and state-sanctioned religious institutions, re-negotiated their rights and duties under the law, and changed the system from within. He also identifies key lessons and best practices for the integration of universal human rights principles into religious legal systems.

The author of the bestselling Just Medicine reveals how racial inequality undermines public health and how we can change it With the rise of the Movement for Black Lives and the feverish calls for Medicare for All, the public spotlight on racial inequality and access to healthcare has never been brighter. The rise of COVID-19 and its disproportionate effects on people of color has especially made clear how the color of one's skin is directly related to the quality of care (or lack thereof) a person receives, and the disastrous health outcomes Americans suffer as a result of racism and an unjust healthcare system. Timely and accessible, Just Health examines how deep structural racism embedded in the fabric of American society leads to worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy for people of color. By presenting evidence of discrimination in housing, education, employment, and the criminal justice system, Dayna Bowen Matthew shows how racial inequality pervades American society and the multitude of ways that this undermines the health of minority populations. The author provides a clear path forward for overcoming these massive barriers to health and ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to be healthy. She encourages health providers to take a leading role in the fight to dismantle the structural inequities their patients face. A compelling and essential read, Just Health helps us to understand how racial inequality damages the health of our minority communities and explains what we can do to fight back.

When Misfortune Becomes Injustice surveys the progress and challenges in deploying human rights to advance health and social equality over recent decades, with a focus on women's health and rights. Yamin weaves together theory and firsthand experience in a compelling narrative of how evolving legal norms, empirical knowledge, and development paradigms have interacted in the realization of health rights. When Misfortune Becomes Injustice reveals extraordinary progress in recognizing health-related claims as legal rights and understanding the policy implications of doing so over the last few decades. Yet Yamin challenges us to consider why these advances have failed to produce greater equality within and between nations, and how the human rights praxis must now urgently address threats to social and gender justice, in health and beyond.

Since 1990, 67 former heads of state or government have been legitimately prosecuted for serious human rights or financial crimes. Many of these leaders were brought to trial in reasonably free and fair judicial processes, and some served time in prison as a result. This book explores the reasons for the meteoric rise in trials of senior leaders and the motivations, public dramas, and intrigues that accompanied efforts to bring them to justice. Drawing on an analysis of the 67 cases, the book examines the emergence of regional trends in Europe and Latin America and contains eight case studies of high-profile trials of former government leaders: Augusto Pinochet (Chile), Alberto Fujimori (Peru), Slobodan Milosevic (former Yugoslavia), Charles Taylor (Liberia and Sierra Leone), and Saddam Hussein (Iraq) studies written by experts who closely followed their cases and their impacts on wider societies. This is the only book that examines the rise in the number of domestic and international trials globally and tells the tales in readable prose and with fascinating details.

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.

Reimagining the National Security State provides the first comprehensive picture of the toll that US government policies took on civil liberties, human rights, and the rule of law in the name of the war on terror. Looking through the lenses of theory, history, law, and policy, the essays in this volume illuminate the ways in which liberal democracy suffered at the hands of policymakers in the name of national security. The contributors, who are leading experts and practitioners in fields ranging from political theory to evolutionary biology, discuss the vast expansion of executive powers, the excessive reliance secrecy, and the exploration of questionable legal territory in matters of detention, criminal justice, targeted killings, and warfare. This book gives the reader an eye-opening window onto the historical precedents and lasting impact the security state has had on civil liberties, human rights and, the rule of law in the name of the war on terror.

PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award Finalist, Longlisted for the National Book Award

Best Books of the Year--Washington Post, Boston Globe, NPR, Bustle, NYPL

From the award-winning, NYT bestselling author of White Rage, the startling--and timely--history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin, now with a new afterword by the author.

In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice.

Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. In a powerful new afterword, she examines the repercussions of the 2018 midterm elections. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans.

High hopes were placed in the ability of the European Convention and the Court of Human Rights to help realise fundamental freedoms and civil and political rights in the post-communist countries. This book explores the effects of the Strasbourg human rights system on the domestic law, politics and reality of the new member states. With contributions by past and present judges of the European Court of Human Rights and assorted constitutional courts, this book provides an insider view of the relationship between Central and Eastern European states and the ECHR, and examines the fundamental role played by the ECHR in the process of democratisation, particularly the areas of the right to liberty, the right to propriety, freedom of expression, and minorities' rights.

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.

In the last two decades, human rights law has played an expanding role in the legal regulation of wartime conduct. In the process, human rights law and international humanitarian law have developed a complicated sibling relationship. For some, this relationship is viewed as a mutually reinforcing effort between like-minded regimes designed to civilize human behavior. For others, the relationship is a more complicated sibling rivalry. In this book, an unparalleled collection of legal theorists examine the relationship between these two bodies of law. Each chapter skilfully maps the possibilities of harmonization while, at the same time, raising cautionary flags about the limits of that project. The authors not only chart the existing state of the law, but also debate the normative implications of the continuing influence of human rights norms on current practices including torture, targeted killings, the conduct of non-international armed conflicts, and post-war state building.