This book examines the impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on national and international jurisprudence, since its adoption in 1989. It offers state of the art knowledge on the functions, challenges and limitations of the CRC in domestic, regional and international children's rights litigation. Litigating the Rights of the Child provides insight in the role of the CRC in domestic jurisprudence in ten countries from different parts of the world, with civil law, common law and Islamic law systems. In addition, it offers analyses of the jurisprudence of regional courts, in Europe and the Americas, and of human rights treaty bodies, including the Human Rights Committee, Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. This book presents a global and comparative picture on the use of the CRC in litigation and identifies emerging trends. This book serves as an important source of reference and inspiration for academics, students, legal professionals, including judges and lawyers, and (inter)national organisations working in the area of children's rights.

"Widely regarded as one of the most successful pieces of modern legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has transformed the nature of minority participation and representation in the United States. But with success came controversy as some scholars claim the Act has outlived its usefulness or been subverted in its aim. This volume brings together leading scholars to offer a twenty-five year perspective on the consequences of this landmark act. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, stated that the right of U.S. citizens to vote ""shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or condition of previous servitude."" The South, however, virtually ignored this right, disfranchising blacks through violence, intimidation, literacy tests, and poll taxes. The primary purpose of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was to break down these barriers to minority voting. Beginning with chapters covering the key provisions of the Act, the book discusses the way the Act has transformed American politics and looks at the role played by major civil rights groups in lobbying for extensions and amendments to it and in insuring that its provisions would be enforced. "

John Hervey Wheeler (1908--1978) was one of the civil rights movement's most influential leaders. In articulating a bold vision of regional prosperity grounded in full citizenship and economic power for African Americans, this banker, lawyer, and visionary would play a key role in the fight for racial and economic equality throughout North Carolina. Utilizing previously unexamined sources from the John Hervey Wheeler Collection at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, this biography explores the black freedom struggle through the life of North Carolina's most influential black power broker. After graduating from Morehouse College, Wheeler returned to Durham and began a decades-long career at Mechanics and Farmers (M&F) Bank. He started as a teller and rose to become bank president in 1952. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Wheeler to the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, a position in which he championed equal rights for African Americans and worked with Vice President Johnson to draft civil rights legislation. One of the first blacks to attain a high position in the state's Democratic Party, Wheeler became the state party's treasurer in 1968, and then its financial director. Wheeler urged North Carolina's white financial advisors to steer the region toward the end of Jim Crow segregation for economic reasons. Straddling the line between confrontation and negotiation, Wheeler pushed for increased economic opportunity for African Americans while reminding the white South that its future was linked to the plight of black southerners.

This book addresses the myriad controversies and examines the evidence regarding capital punishment in America. It answers questions regarding topics like the efficacy of capital punishment in deterring violent crime, the risks of mistakes, legal issues related to capital punishment, and the monetary costs of keeping inmates on death row. Does the possibility of being put to death deter crime? Do the methods of execution matter? Is it possible for a state-ordered execution to be botched? Are innocent people ever sent to death row? Are there racial biases or other prejudices associated with the death penalty? This book examines the history of capital punishment in the United States; describes the significant issues, events, and cases; and addresses the controversies and legal issues surrounding capital punishment, making this important topic accessible to a wide range of readers. The book presents both sides of the argument on whether capital punishment should continue or be abolished, looking at the evidence regarding whether it is necessary for carrying out justice and deterring violent crime or whether the practice is inhumane, ineffective, biased in its application, and costly. Readers will gain insights into how capital punishment should be used, if at all; whether effective safeguards are in place to ensure that only the guilty receive the death penalty; what crimes deserve this sentence; whether juveniles or individuals with diminished mental capacity should ever be sentenced to death; potentially viable alternatives to the death penalty; and the hidden costs involved in our capital punishment system that make it so expensive. The book also contains primary documents relevant to capital punishment, such as excerpts from documents like the U.S. Constitution, the Hittite case laws, and the Code of Hammurabi, as well as descriptions of and excerpts from key cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Presents "Perspectives" from various writers, allowing readers to consider opinions from many informed individuals-including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and professors-who are concerned with capital punishment Supplies easy-to-understand information for general readers seeking to learn more about the history, purposes, effects, methods, and costs of capital punishment Provides a balanced, objective discussion of the arguments and complex issues regarding capital punishment, enabling readers to reach their own opinions and conclusions

South Africa's 1994 election was widely hailed around the world as miraculous. In this book, Anthony Butler examines South African experiences to cast doubt on this celebratory attitude to democracy. Contemporary political analysis highlights the benefits that democracy can sometimes bring. Butler, by contrast, argues that democracy can be malign. He attacks the myth that democracy ended apartheid, and shows that democratic practices themselves contributed to its evils. The author also explores weaknesses in political science as a discipline. This book will be essential reading for specialists in South Africa, and will appeal to political theorists, students of comparative politics, and historians.

Mega Cause I was one of the largest in a recent surge of trials in Argentina for human rights violations committed during the dictatorship of 1976-1983. In 2011, the judges condemned 16 of the 18 defendants, all ex-naval officers from the ESMA clandestine detention center. This study analyzes the role of the state and human rights organizations in the trial; the successes and difficulties of the trial and their relation to Mega Cause II; and the trial's implications for truth, memory, and reconciliation. Data were collected in Buenos Aires in June 2012 through interviews with seven prominent members of the prosecution, an internship at the Ulloa Center, archive research, and attendance at human rights trials, demonstrations, and former detention centers.

This festschrift in honor of the work and legacy of Dr. Marc Groenhuijsen provides an international and holistic overview of recent developments in victimology, taking a global scope but grounded in everyday experiences of victims. Its multidisciplinary perspective reflects a range of approaches and practices in victimology, including contributions from the fields of social work, criminology, sociology, psychology, and law. Firstly, the volume introduces new perspectives in victimology, and then analyzes different forms of victimization in countries worldwide. It gives special attention to victims' rights and participation in the criminal justice system, detailing victim-centered approaches to justice through practices such as restorative justice and restitution. Highlighting the growth and development of victimology from a specialization in criminology to an academic discipline in its own right, this book reflects the range of approaches and depth of scholarship in the field. This will be an essential resource to students of victimology, researchers, policy makers, and victim's advocates.

"The Student Voice" was the magazine of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the organization that was on the cutting edge of the Civil Rights movement during the 1960s. This facsimile reproduction of the papers includes an introduction by Dr. Carson as well as a comprehensive index.

Known terrorists are often targeted for death by the governments of Israel and the United States. Several thousand have been killed by drones or by operatives on the ground in the last twenty years. Is this form of killing justified, when hundreds or thousands of lives are possibly at risk at the hands of a known terrorist? Is there anything about it that should disturb us? Ethically-sound and practical answers to these questions are more difficult to come by than it might seem. Renowned political theorists Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels here defend two competing positions on the legitimacy of targeted killing as used in counterterrorism strategy in this riveting and essential for-and-against book. The volume begins with a joint introduction, briefly setting out the terms of discussion, and presenting a short historical overview of the practice: what targeted killing is, and how it has been used in which conflicts and by whom. It then hones in on killings themselves and the element of targeting. The authors tackle difficult and infinitely complex subjects, for example the similarities and differences between targeted killing of terrorists and ordinary killings in combat, and they ask whether targeted killing can be regarded as a law enforcement strategy, or as a hybrid between combat and law enforcement. They compare the practice of targeted killing with assassination and the use of death squads. And they consider the likelihood that targeted killing has been or will be abused against insurgents, criminals, or political opponents. Meisels analyzes the assassination by Israeli operatives of nuclear scientists working for regimes hostile to Israel. Meisels and Waldron carefully consider whether this sort of killing can ever be justified in terms of the danger it, in theory, averts. The conclusions drawn are at once as surprising as they are insightful, cautioning us against a world in which targeted killing is the norm as it proliferates rapidly. This is essential reading not only for students of political and war theory and military personnel, but for anyone interested in or concerned by the future of targeted killing.

Since the fall of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in 1990, Chilean society has shied away from the subject of civilian complicity, preferring to pursue convictions of military perpetrators. But the torture, murders, deportations, and disappearances of tens of thousands of people in Chile were not carried out by the military alone; they required a vast civilian network. Some citizens actively participated in the regime's massive violations of human rights for personal gain or out of a sense of patriotic duty. Others supported Pinochet's neoliberal economic program while turning a blind eye to the crimes of that era. Michael J. Lazzara boldly argues that today's Chile is a product of both complicity and complacency. Combining historical analysis with deft literary, political, and cultural critique, he scrutinizes the post-Pinochet rationalizations made by politicians, artists, intellectuals, bystanders, former revolutionaries-turned-neoliberals, and common citizens. He looks beyond victims and perpetrators to unveil the ambiguous, ethically vexed realms of memory and experience that authoritarian regimes inevitably generate.

Jacoby provides a comprehensive social history of the abortion abolition campaign from its beginnings following "Roe v. Wade" through the 1996 elections. She explores the abortion abolition effort historically, sociologically, theologically, and politically, arguing for a deepened understanding of American abortion opponents.

The history of the abortion abolition effort in America is examined through three different approaches to the understanding of collective behavior. Beginning with the immediate post-"Roe" period, the movement is explored as a Catholic moral crusade, and Jacoby analyzes why Catholic Americans were particularly prone to such activity as well as why otherwise theologically compatible Protestants were not. She then examines the effort as a major social movement beginning around 1980. Finally, the late-1980s development of direct action activity, most notably in the form of Operation Rescue, is viewed in light of its connection to the theology and expectations of religious revivalism. In her conclusions, Jacoby provides a new model for understanding faith-based political action. Students, teachers, and the general public will find this book a thorough, comprehensive, and accessible examination of the movement.

Asia's rising power and wealth offer its many oppressed ethnic minorities hope for greater political freedom and an end to violence. But the reality of this hope is cast into doubt by acute separatist conflict. This book provides fresh and factual assessments of separatist struggles and prospects for conflict resolution in eight countries of Asia.

The series is rounded off by this volume which focuses on "immigrant" policy, i.e., the ensemble of institutions, laws and social practices that are designed to facilitate the integration of immigrants and refugees into the receiving countries after they arrive. The chapters bring both theoretical and empirical analysis to bear on the processes of assimilation, migrants' development of transnational linkages, patterns of social and economic mobility in the immigrant and second generations, migrants' rights to public benefits and equal status, and the laws of citizenship in the two countries. The volume is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on the research of demographers, lawyers, and sociologists. It is also explicitly comparative,underscoring the similarities and differences in how the United States and Germany conceive of the role of immigrants in their societies and how the two nations incorporate them into civil and political society. Introductory and concluding chapters highlight the principal themes, findings, and policy implications of the volume.

The book analyses the Indian Supreme Court's jurisprudence on homosexuality, its current approach and how its position has evolved in the past ten years. It critically analyses the Court's landmark judgments and its perception of equality, family, marriage and human rights from an international perspective. With the help of European Court of Human Rights' judgments and international conventions, it compares the legal and social discrimination meted out to the Indian LGBTI community with that in the international arena. From a social anthropological perspective, it demonstrates how gay masculinity, although marginalized, serves as a challenge to patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity. This unique book addresses the lack of in-depth literature on gay masculinity, elaborately narrating and analysing contemporary gay masculinity and emerging gay lifestyles in India and highlighting the latest research on the subject of homosexuality in general and in particular with respect to India. It also discusses several new issues concerning the gay men in India supported by the living law approach put forth by Eugen Ehrlich.

Throughout American history, legal battles concerning the First Amendment's protection of religious liberty have been among the most contentious issue of the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Religious Liberty and the American Supreme Court: The Essential Cases and Documents represents the most authoritative and up-to-date overview of the landmark cases that have defined religious freedom in America. Noted religious liberty expert Vincent Philip Munoz (Notre Dame) provides carefully edited excerpts from over fifty of the most important Supreme Court religious liberty cases. In addition, Munoz's substantive introduction offers an overview on the constitutional history of religious liberty in America. Introductory headnotes to each case provides the constitutional and historical context. Religious Liberty and the American Constitution will be an indispensable resource for anyone interested matters of religious freedom from the Republics earliest days to current debates.

In Western countries, the theories and practices of citizenship and democracy have come under intense scrutiny. These are premised on a relatively autonomous nation state, yet national boundaries are now being tested through globalization. At the same time they are being challenged by new forms of identity based on communities, minorities and transnational belonging. Increasingly, the nation state is incapable of delivering on its promise of economic, political and social rights. The contributions in this book focus on the relationship between citizenship and difference, highlighting new tensions between the local and the global.

From 1973 to 1990 in Chile, approximately 370,000 young men mostly from impoverished backgrounds were conscripted to serve as soldiers in Augusto Pinochet's violent regime. Some were brutal enforcers, but many themselves endured physical and psychological abuse, survival and torture training, arbitrary punishments, political persecution, and forced labor. Leith Passmore examines the emergence, in the early twenty-first century, of a movement of ex-conscripts seeking reparations. The former soldiers challenged the politics of memory that had shaped Chile's truth and reconciliation efforts, demanding recognition of their own broken families, ill health and incapacity to work, and damaged sense of self. Relying on unpublished material, testimony, interviews, and field notes, Passmore locates these individuals' narratives of victimhood at the intersection of long-term histories of patriotism, masculinity, and cyclical poverty. These accounts reveal in detail how Pinochet's war against his own citizens as well as the ""almost-wars"" with neighboring Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina were also waged inside Chile's army barracks.

This book considers the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communication procedure as a key contributor to the realization of children's Article 12 Convention on the Rights of the Child participation rights. Weaknesses in the current formulation of the CRC communication procedure (its first iteration since entry into force 14 April, 2014) are examined and suggestions for strengthening of the mechanism in various respects considered. Actual cases concerning children's fundamental human rights in various domains and brought under various international human rights mechanisms are considered as hypothetical OP3-CRC communications/complaints. In addition certain domestic cases brought to the highest State Court are considered as hypothetical OP3-CRC communications brought after exhaustion of domestic remedies. In this way various significant weaknesses of the OP3-CRC are illustrated in a compelling meaningful case context and needed amendments highlighted.

This book examines the contribution social theory can make to understanding different human rights which operate in a variety of settings. Including an introduction to the theoretical issues raised by the study of rights, it covers a range of individual and collective rights, illuminating the relationship between social theory and human rights.

Human rights is often claimed as the 'idea' of our time. However, although considerable time, energy and resources have been invested in the idea, and extravagant claims are often made about progress in providing machinery for the protection of human rights, there are few signs that violations are any less common than in the past. This book argues that while the USA was instrumental in establishing the 'idea' of human rights as a dominant theme in the day-to-day rhetoric of international relations, powerful economic and political interests succeeded in ensuring that a strong international regime for the protection of human rights did not emerge.

Surveillance, privacy and public trust form a burgeoning presence within debates surrounding technological developments, particularly in the current 'war on terror' environment. Social, economic and political issues are invoked in collecting, categorizing, scrutinizing and mobilizing information on the everyday activities of the population. These are implicated in new legislative developments, ways of conceptualizing society and a growth in the industry of protest. However, what do we know about the day to day detail of these developments? This book situates these issues in a detailed study of CCTV to offer a timely, robust and incisive contribution to knowledge.

This book addresses the question: "What should be the appropriate limits to free speech?" The author claims that it is the state, rather than abstract principles, that must provide the answer. The book defends a version of Hobbesian absolutism and rejects the dominant liberal idea that there is a right (human or civil) setting the boundaries of free speech. This liberal view can be known as the "principled defence of free speech", in which speech is established as a constitutional principle that has priority over the state. The author instead offers an "unprincipled approach to free speech", suggesting that the boundaries of speech must necessarily be set by the state, which in liberal democracies means through social and political contestation. The final chapter applies the argument to the topic of hate speech and argues that it is appropriate to limit such speech when it causes harm and offense. The book will be of use to students and scholars across political theory, political science, sociology, philosophy and law.

This biographical study analyzes the careers and thinking of a dozen union leaders of Irish descent who contributed significantly to the union movement. The work demonstrates the pragmatic approach of the majority of these leaders arising from disappointing experience with radical ideas embraced in their youth. Their object was cohesion among diverse nationalities in the work force to build strong national unions able to eliminate destructive wage competition in ever-widening markets. Beginning with background on Irish immigration, the study follows developments from the 1870s and extends through those who were active in the 1950s on both coasts and in the mid-west. It is the first book written for scholars and others dealing with Irish-American unionists in depth.