The conventional interpretation of equality under the law singles out certain groups or classes for constitutional protection: women, racial minorities, and gays and lesbians. The United States Supreme Court calls these groups 'suspect classes'. Laws that discriminate against them are generally unconstitutional. While this is a familiar account of equal protection jurisprudence, this book argues that this approach suffers from hitherto unnoticed normative and political problems. The book elucidates a competing, extant interpretation of equal protection jurisprudence that avoids these problems. The interpretation is not concerned with suspect classes but rather with the kinds of reasons that are already inadmissible as a matter of constitutional law. This alternative approach treats the equal protection clause like any other limit on governmental power, thus allowing the Court to invalidate equality-infringing laws and policies by focusing on their justification rather than the identity group they discriminate against.

"Choice" Outstanding Academic Title 2003

.,."A thorough summary of the trajectory of current case law on the legal regulation of U.S. citizens' intimate lives. . . . A valuable introduction to increasingly important and salient legal questions about the constitutional limits on the state's ability to shape intimate lives in the United States."
--" Political Science Quarterly"

.,."A worthy assessment of the law of intimate association and personal decision-making. For those intrigued by the Court's human side, Ball provides a sufficient glimpse without raising the curtain on its realm of privacy that the justices have strived to protect.
-- "Trial"

"Despite the controversial content of many of the cases, Mr. Ball maintains an air of bemused detachment and does not openly take sides. This is not a polemic. With few exceptions, the prevailing tone is light and scholarly. The goal is to illuminate, not to persuade."
--"New York Law Journal"

"In this truly fascinating and spellbinding work, Ball tells many tales."
-- "Choice"

Personal rights, such as the right to procreate--or not--and the right to die generate endless debate. This book maps out the legal, political, and ethical issues swirling around personal rights. Howard Ball shows how the Supreme Court has grappled with the right to reproduce and to abort, and takes on the issue of auto-euthanasia and assisted suicide, from Karen Ann Quinlan through Kevorkian and just recently to the Florida case of the woman who was paralyzed by a gunshot from her mother and who had the plug pulled on herself.

For the last half of the twentieth century, the justices of the Supreme Court have had to wrestle with newand difficult life and death questions for them as well as for doctors and their patients, medical ethicists, sociologists, medical practitioners, clergy, philosophers, law makers, and judges. The Supreme Court in the Intimate Lives of Americans offers a look at these issues as they emerged and examines the manner in which the men and women of the U.S. Supreme Court addressed them.

All states are challenged by the need to protect national security while maintaining the rule of law, but the issue is particularly complex in the China-Hong Kong context. This timely and important book explores how China conceives of its national security and the position of Hong Kong. It considers the risks of introducing national security legislation in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong's sources of resilience against encroachments on its rule of law that may come under the guise of national security. It points to what may be needed to maintain Hong Kong's rule of law once China's 50-year commitment to its autonomy ends in 2047. The contributors to this book include world-renowned scholars in comparative public law and national security law. The collection covers a variety of disciplines and jurisdictions, and both scholarly and practical perspectives to present a forward-looking analysis on the rule of law in Hong Kong. It illustrates how Hong Kong may succeed in resisting pressure to advance China's security interests through repressive law. Given China's growing international stature, the book's reflections on China's approach to security have much to tell us about its potential impact on the global political, security, and economic order.

In the period since the end of the Second World War, there has emerged what never before existed: a truly global morality. Some of that morality - the morality of human rights - has become entrenched in the constitutional law of the United States. This book explicates the morality of human rights and elaborates three internationally recognized human rights that are embedded in US constitutional law: the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment; the right to moral equality; and the right to religious and moral freedom. The implications of one or more of these rights for three great constitutional controversies - capital punishment, same-sex marriage and abortion - are discussed in-depth. Along the way, Michael J. Perry addresses the question of the proper role of the Supreme Court of the United States in adjudicating these controversies.

Judging Free Speech contains nine original essays by political scientists and law professors, each providing a comprehensive, yet concise and accessible overview of the free speech jurisprudence of a United States Supreme Court Justice.

This book focuses on women's human rights in India. Drawing on case studies, it provides a clear overview of the key sources on gender and rights in the country. Further, it contextualizes women's rights at the critical intersection of caste, religion and class, and analyses barriers to the realization of women's human rights in practice. It also develops strategies for moving forward towards greater recognition, protection, promotion and fulfilment of women's human rights in India. Drawing on critical pedagogical tools to analyse groundbreaking court cases, this book will be a key text in human rights studies. It will be indispensable to students, scholars and researchers of gender studies, sociology, law and human rights.

This book explains the reciprocal relations between the Supreme Court and the Israeli political system. It is based on a unique approach that contends that the non-governability of the political system and an alternative political culture are two key formal and informal variables affecting the behavior of several political players within the Israeli arena. The analysis illustrates the usefulness of such a model for analyzing long-term socio-political processes and explaining the actions of the players. Until this model changes significantly, the decisions of the High Court of Justice express the values of the state and enable Israel to remain a nation that upholds human rights. The court's decisions determine the normative educational direction and reflect Israel's democratic character with regard to the values of human rights.

This book examines the existing constitutional and legal system in England, Wales and Scotland, through the prism of its treatment of religion and belief. The study encompasses questions of Church/state relations, but pushes far beyond these. It asks whether the approach to religion which has spread out from establishment to permeate the whole legal framework is a cause of concern or celebration in relation to individual and collective freedoms. The primary focus of the work is the synergy between the religious dimension of the juridical system and the fundamental pillars of the Constitution (parliamentary sovereignty, the rule of law, separation of powers and human rights). Javier Garcia Oliva and Helen Hall challenge the view that separation between public and religious authorities is the most conducive means of nurturing a free and democratic society in modern Britain. The authors explore whether, counter-intuitively for some, the religious dynamic to the legal system actually operates to safeguard liberties, and has a role in generating an inclusive and adaptable backdrop for our collective life. They suggest that the present paradigm brings benefits for citizens of all shades of religious belief and opinion (including Atheist and Humanist perspectives), as well as secondary advantages for those with profound beliefs on non-religious matters, such as pacifism and veganism. In support of their contentions, Garcia Oliva and Hall examine how the religious dimension of the legal framework operates to further essential constitutional principles in diverse settings, ranging from criminal to family law. In a groundbreaking move, the authors also set the legal discussion alongside its social and cultural context. They consider how the theological perspectives of the larger faith traditions might influence members' ideas around the key constitutional precepts, and they include extracts from interviews which give the personal perspective of more than 100 individuals on contemporary issues of law and religious freedom. These voices are drawn from a range of fields and positions on faith. While the authors are at pains to stress that these sections do not support or advance their legal or theological conclusions, they do provide readers with a human backdrop to the discussion, and demonstrate its crucial importance in twenty-first century Britain.

The sixth volume in the series of the Central and Eastern European Forum for Legal, Political, and Social Theory Yearbook is focused on the effects of globalisation and global governance on state, law and society. It addresses the great structural and systemic changes in the fundamental constitutional and political concepts produced by the above mentioned phenomena. The main issues which are discussed in the book are the crisis of authority, the crisis of territoriality, the shifting constitutional geometry, the constitutional identity, the territorial irresponsibility of capital, the horizontalisation of human rights, the new constitutional and political roles of the transnational corporations and the global religions as well as the influence of the supranational jurisdictions on the supranational and national legal orders.

In a global economy, multinational companies often operate in jurisdictions where governments are either unable or unwilling to uphold even the basic human rights of their citizens. The expectation that companies respect human rights in their own operations and in their business relationships is now a business reality that corporations need to respond to. Business and Human Rights: From Principles to Practice is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary textbook that addresses these issues. It examines the regulatory framework that grounds the business and human rights debate and highlights the business and legal challenges faced by companies and stakeholders in improving respect for human rights, exploring such topics as: the regulatory framework that grounds the business and human rights debate challenges faced by companies and stakeholders in improving human rights industry-specific human rights standards current mechanisms to hold corporations to account future challenges for business and human rights With supporting case studies throughout, this text provides an overview of current themes in the field and guidance on practical implementation, demonstrating that a thorough understanding of the human rights challenges faced by business is now vital in any business context.

This edited volume offers original scholarship on economic and social human rights from leading and new cutting-edge scholars in the fields of economics, law, political science, sociology, and anthropology. It analyzes the core economic and social rights and the crucial topic of nondiscrimination, and includes an innovative section on meta rights. The main chapters answer important questions about economic and social rights performance around the world by emphasizing the obstacles that prevent governments from fulfilling their obligations. The interdisciplinary analysis offers a detailed and up-to-date discussion to help scholars and policy makers find the best ways to instantiate economic and social rights. The authors examine the role of the associated obligations, and especially the obstacles to respect, protect, and fulfill those obligations. The book's introductory and concluding chapters address conceptual issues and correct mistakes often made by critics of economic and social rights.

This book aims to bolster the burgeoning discourse of health and human rights. In so doing, it charts the history of the linkage between health and human rights. It also pinpoints the sense of imperative that surrounds this relationship. More importantly, the book identifies a series of threats and challenges facing attempts to link health and human rights and proposes how these might be addressed. Amongst other things, it asks: is conflict between risk and rights inevitable in the context of infectious disease control? Is reproductive choice a bad argument in the context of reproductive technologies? Is it sensible for human rights to make use of measurement tools such as indicators? Is the 'cost of human rights' an argument that can and should be used by proponents of human rights? The answers it gives to these questions are original and engaging and will be of great interest to a diverse audience, including scholars and policy-makers in these areas.

State authority and power have become diffused in an increasingly globalized world characterized by the freer trans-border movement of people, objects and ideas. As a result, some international law scholars believe that a new world order is emerging based on a complex web of transnational networks. Such a transnational legal order requires sufficient dialogue between national courts. This 2010 book explores the prospects for such an order in the context of refugee law in Europe, focusing on the use of foreign law in refugee cases. Judicial practice is critically analysed in nine EU member states, with case studies revealing a mix of rational and cultural factors that lead judges to rarely use each others' decisions within the EU. Conclusions are drawn for the prospects of a Common European Asylum System and for international refugee law.

Human trafficking is widely considered to be the fastest growing branch of trafficking. As this important book reveals, it has moved rapidly up the agenda of states and international organisations since the early-1990s, not only because of this growth, but also as its implications for security and human rights have become clearer. This fascinating study by international experts provides original research findings on human trafficking, with particular reference to Europe, South-East Asia and Australia. A major focus is on why and how many states and organisations act in ways that undermine trafficked victims' rights, as part of 'quadruple victimisation'. It compares and contrasts policies and suggests which seem to work best and why. The contributors also advocate radical new approaches that most states and other formal organisations appear loath to introduce, for reasons that are explored in this unique book. This must-read book will appeal to policymakers as well as advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in the fields of criminology, human rights law, gender studies, political science and international studies. Contributors: J. Debeljak, L. Holmes, S. Kneebone, Z. Lasocik, K. Leong, S. Milivojevic, S. Schwandner-Sievers, M. Segrave, O. Simic, S. Yea

Human rights are considered one of the big ideas of the early twenty-first century. This book presents in an authoritative and readable form the variety of platforms on which human rights law is practiced today, reflecting also on the dynamic inter-relationships that exist between these various levels. The collection has a critical edge. The chapters engage with how human rights law has developed in its various subfields, what (if anything) has been achieved and at what cost, in terms of expected or produced unexpected side-effects. The authors pass judgment about the consistency, efficacy and success of human rights law (set against the standards of the field itself or other external goals). Written by world-class academics, this Companion will be essential reading for students and scholars of human rights law.

Preventive detention as a counter-terrorism tool is fraught with conceptual and procedural problems and risks of misuse, excess and abuse. Many have debated the inadequacies of the current legal frameworks for detention, and the need for finding the most appropriate legal model to govern detention of terror suspects that might serve as a global paradigm. This book offers a comprehensive and critical analysis of the detention of terror suspects under domestic criminal law, the law of armed conflict and international human rights law. The book looks comparatively at the law in a number of key jurisdictions including the USA, the UK, Israel, France, India, Australia and Canada and in turn compares this to preventive detention under the law of armed conflict and various human rights treaties. The book demonstrates that the procedures governing the use of preventive detention are deficient in each framework and that these deficiencies often have an adverse and serious impact on the human rights of detainees, thereby delegitimizing the use of preventive detention. Based on her investigation Diane Webber puts forward a new approach to preventive detention, setting out ten key minimum criteria drawn from international human rights principles and best practices from domestic laws. The minimum criteria are designed to cure the current flaws and deficiencies and provide a base line of guidance for the many countries that choose to use preventive detention, in a way that both respects human rights and maintains security.

This timely book explores the relationship between private law and globalization. It examines the consequences of the fact that law making now takes place in a globalized world which increasingly leads to questions of accountability and legitimacy of the law making process. Within this work, European and South African scholars deal with the relationship between private law and globalization in fourteen innovative chapters, addressing inter alia globalization, democracy and accountability, harmonization versus decentralization, public law issues, corporate governance, procedural issues as well as human rights and the environment. This well-documented and original study will be a valuable resource for academics and legal practitioners as well as students. Specialists in private law, transnational law, international law and legal theory should also not be without this important book.

This open access book asks whether there is space for particularism in a constitutional democracy which would limit the implementation of EU law. National identity claims are a key factor in shaping our times and the ongoing evolution of the European Union. To assess their impact this collection focuses on the jurisprudence of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, as they play an essential role in giving life to particularism. By taking particularism as the prism through which they explore the question, the contributors offer a new analytical scheme to evaluate the judicial invocation of identity. This requires an interdisciplinary approach: the study draws on comparative constitutional law, theory, comparative-empirical material and normative-philosophical perspectives. This is a fresh and thought-provoking new study on an increasingly important question in EU law. The ebook editions of this book are available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Particularly in the context of internal conflicts, international law is frequently unable to create and sustain frameworks for peace in Africa. In Peacebuilding in the African Union, Abou Jeng explores the factors which have prevented such steps forward in the interaction between the international legal order and postcolonial Africa. In the first work of its kind, Jeng considers whether these limitations necessitate recasting the existing conceptual structure and whether the Constitutive Act of the African Union provides exactly this opportunity through its integrated peace and security framework. Through the case studies of Burundi and Somalia, Jeng examines the structures and philosophy of the African Union and assesses the capacity of its practices in peacemaking. In so doing, this book will be of great practical value to scholars and legal practitioners alike.

Years of surveillance-related leaks from US whistle blower Edward Snowden have fuelled an international debate on privacy, spying, and Internet surveillance. Much of the focus has centered on the role of the US National Security Agency, yet there is an important Canadian side to the story. The Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian counterpart to the NSA, has played an active role in surveillance activities both at home and abroad, raising a host of challenging legal and policy questions. With contributions by leading experts in the field, Law, Privacy and Surveillance in Canada in the Post-Snowden Era is the right book at the right time: From the effectiveness of accountability and oversight programs to the legal issues raised by metadata collection to the privacy challenges surrounding new technologies, this book explores current issues torn from the headlines with a uniquely Canadian perspective.

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

Does "Asian American" denote an ethnic or racial identification? Is a person of mixed ancestry, the child of Euro- and Asian American parents, Asian American? What does it mean to refer to first generation Hmong refugees and fifth generation Chinese Americans both as Asian American?

In Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law, and the Nation State, Robert Chang examines the current discourse on race and law and the implications of postmodern theory and affirmative action-all of which have largely excluded Asian Americans-in order to develop a theory of critical Asian American legal studies.

Demonstrating that the ongoing debate surrounding multiculturalism and immigration in the U.S. is really a struggle over the meaning of "America," Chang reveals how the construction of Asian American-ness has become a necessary component in stabilizing a national American identity-- a fact Chang criticizes as harmful to Asian Americans. Defining the many "borders" that operate in positive and negative ways to construct America as we know it, Chang analyzes the position of Asian Americans within America's black/white racial paradigm, how "the family" operates as a stand-in for race and nation, and how the figure of the immigrant embodies a central contradiction in allegories of America.

"Has profound political implications for race relations in the new century"
"--Michigan Law Review, May 2001"

In Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition, Justin Buckley Dyer provides a succinct account of the development of American antislavery constitutionalism in the years preceding the Civil War. Within the context of recent revisionist scholarship, Dyer argues that the theoretical foundations of American constitutionalism - which he identifies with principles of natural law - were antagonistic to slavery. Still, the continued existence of slavery in the nineteenth century created a tension between practice and principle. In a series of case studies, Dyer reconstructs the constitutional arguments of prominent antislavery thinkers such as John Quincy Adams, John McLean, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, who collectively sought to overcome the legacy of slavery by emphasizing the natural law foundations of American constitutionalism. What emerges is a convoluted understanding of American constitutional development that challenges traditional narratives of linear progress while highlighting the centrality of natural law to America's greatest constitutional crisis.

Is there universalism of human rights? If so, what are its scope and limits? This book is a doctrinal attempt to define universalism of human rights, as well as its scope and limits. The book presents tests of universalism on international, regional and national constitutional levels. It is maintained that universalism of human rights is both a 'concept' and a 'normative reality'. The normative character of human rights is scrutinized through the study of international and regional agreements as well as national constitutions. As a consequence, limitations of normativity are identified, usually on the international level, and take the form of exceptions, reservations, and interpretations. The book is based on the General and National Reports which were originally presented at the 18th International Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law in Washington D.C. 2010.