When does the exercise of an interest constitute a human right? The contributors to Menuge's edited collection offer a range of secular and religious responses to this fundamental question of the legitimacy of human rights claims. The first section evaluates the plausibility of natural and transcendent foundations for human rights. A further section explores the nature of religious freedom and the vexed question of its proper limits as it arises in the US, European, and global contexts. The final section explores the pragmatic justification of human rights: how do we motivate the recognition and enforcement of human rights in the real world? This topical book should be of interest to a range of academics from disciplines spanning law, philosophy, religion and politics.

Health rights litigation is still an emerging phenomenon in Africa, despite the constitutions of many African countries having provisions to advance the right to health. Litigation can provide a powerful tool not only to hold governments accountable for failure to realise the right to health, but also to empower the people to seek redress for the violation of this essential right. With contributions from activists and scholars across Africa, the collection includes a diverse range of case studies throughout the region, demonstrating that even in jurisdictions where the right to health has not been explicitly guaranteed, attempts have been made to litigate on this right. The collection focusses on understanding the legal framework for the recognition of the right to health, the challenges people encounter in litigating health rights issues and prospects of litigating future health rights cases in Africa. The book also takes a comparative approach to litigating the right to health before regional human rights bodies. This book will be valuable reading to scholars, researchers, policymakers, activists and students interested in the right to health.

As most jurisdictions move away from the death penalty, some remain strongly committed to it, while others hold on to it but use it sparingly. This volume seeks to understand why, by examining the death penalty's relationship to state governance in the past and present. It also examines how international, transnational and national forces intersect in order to understand the possibilities of future death penalty abolition. The chapters cover the USA - the only western democracy that still uses the death penalty - and Asia - the site of some 90 per cent of all executions. Also included are discussions of the death penalty in Islam and its practice in selected Muslim majority countries. There is also a comparative chapter departing from the response to the mass killings in Norway in 2011. Leading experts in law, criminology and human rights combine theory and empirical research to further our understanding of the relationships between ways of governance, the role of leadership and the death penalty practices. This book questions whether the death penalty in and of itself is a hazard to a sustainable development of criminal justice. It is an invaluable resource for all those researching and campaigning for the global abolition of capital punishment.

This collection brings together a group of highly respected law and religion scholars to explore the funding of religious heritage in the context of state support for religions. The importance of this state support is that on the one hand it illustrates the potential tensions between secular and religious values, whilst on the other it constitutes a relevant tool for investigating the question of the legitimacy of such financial support. The funding logically varies according to the national system of state-religion relationships and this is reflected in the range of countries studied, including: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The book provides clarity in the assignment of funds to religious heritage, as well as seeking to define the limit of what relates to the exercise of worship and what belongs to cultural policy. It is clear that the main challenge for the future lies not only in managing the dual purpose of religious monuments, but also in re-using these buildings which have lost their original purpose. This collection will appeal to those interested in cultural heritage management, as well as law and religion scholars. The views expressed during the execution of the RELIGARE project, in whatever form and or by whatever medium, are the sole responsibility of the authors. The European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

This book analyses the current legal framework seeking to protect cultural heritage during armed conflict and discusses proposed and emerging paradigms for its better protection. Cultural heritage has always been a victim of conflict, with monuments and artefacts frequently destroyed as collateral damage in wars throughout history. In addition, works of art have been viewed as booty by victors and stolen in the aftermath of conflict. However, deliberate destruction of cultural sites and items has also occurred, and the Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has been a hallmark of recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, where we have witnessed unprecedented, systematic attacks on culture as a weapon of war. In Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Mali, extremist groups such as ISIS and Ansar Dine have committed numerous acts of iconoclasm, deliberately destroying heritage sites, and looting valuable artefacts symbolic of minority cultures. This study explores how the international law framework can be fully utilised in order to tackle the destruction of cultural heritage, and analyses various paradigms which have recently been suggested for its better protection, including the Responsibility to Protect paradigm and the peace and security paradigm. This volume will be an essential resource for scholars and practitioners in the areas of public international law, especially international humanitarian law and cultural heritage law.

Although asylum has generated unparalleled levels of public and political concern over the past decade, there has been astonishingly little field research on the topic. This is a study of the legal process of claiming asylum from an anthropological perspective, focusing on the role of expert evidence from 'country experts' such as anthropologists. It describes how such evidence is used in assessments of asylum claims by the Home Office and by adjudicators and tribunals hearing asylum appeals. It compares uses of social scientific and medical evidence in legal decision-making and analyzes, anthropologically, the legal uses of key concepts from the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as 'race', 'religion', and 'social group'. The evidence is drawn from field observation of more than 300 appeal hearings in London and Glasgow; from reported case law and from interviews with immigration adjudicators, tribunal chairs, barristers and solicitors, as well as expert witnesses.

Dealing with this new and controversial area, this is the first comprehensive guide to religious discrimination and hatred legislation. Written by a practising barrister, experienced in all courts and tribunals, this book uses many practical examples covering all forms of religious belief. Exploring part two of the Equality Act and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, Addison examines the fundamental differences between religion and race which make the operation of these new laws far more problematic than other racial laws. By looking at these new pieces of legislation, together with the existing Human Rights provisions of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the 2003 Employment Discrimination Regulations and the 2001 Religiously Aggravated Offences, he is able to draw subtle comparisons and create a holistic overview of religion and the law. Challenging some common but simplistic views on the nature of religion and its accommodation in the law, this book is an essential read for students and professionals interested in human rights law and law and religion.

Although asylum has generated unparalleled levels of public and political concern over the past decade, there has been astonishingly little field research on the topic. This is a study of the legal process of claiming asylum from an anthropological perspective, focusing on the role of expert evidence from 'country experts' such as anthropologists. It describes how such evidence is used in assessments of asylum claims by the Home Office and by adjudicators and tribunals hearing asylum appeals. It compares uses of social scientific and medical evidence in legal decision-making and analyzes, anthropologically, the legal uses of key concepts from the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as 'race', 'religion', and 'social group'. The evidence is drawn from field observation of more than 300 appeal hearings in London and Glasgow; from reported case law and from interviews with immigration adjudicators, tribunal chairs, barristers and solicitors, as well as expert witnesses.

This volume provides a timely analysis of global and regional responses to international terrorism. The work assesses the role of the United Nations and its various organs, particularly the General Assembly and the Security Council, and discusses the key legal issues. The second part of the book examines the activity of regional organizations both in their own right as well as their interaction with the UN. The volume concludes with a discussion of whether, to what extent and how the fight against terrorism has encroached upon fundamental rules of international law such as the international protection of human rights or the use of force among states. The volume is the latest in a series drawing on the presentations of high ranking scholars, diplomats and representatives of international organizations. The result is a stimulating and thought-provoking book which will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers alike.

Disasters can strike often and with unexpected fury, resulting in devastating consequences for local populations that are insufficiently prepared and largely dependent upon foreign aid in the wake of such catastrophes. International law can play a significant role in the recovery after inevitable natural disasters; however, without clear legal frameworks, aid may be stopped, delayed, or even hijacked placing the intended suffering recipients in critical condition. This edited volume brings together experts, emerging scholars, and practitioners in the field of international disaster law from North America, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia to analyze the evolution of international disaster law as a field that encompasses new ideas about human rights, sovereignty, and technology. Chapters focus on specific natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, Cyclone Nargis, and Typhoon Hainan in addition to volcanic and earthquake activity, wildfires, and desertification. This book begins a dialogue on the profound implications of the evolution of international law as a tool for disaster response."

As international criminal law grows in importance and practical impact, long-standing questions of criminal procedure will need to be addressed: i.e. how do we reconcile continental-style and Anglo-American procedure? and how do we ensure that international norms of human rights are complied with. Through a systematic comparative and institutional study, this book provides an important guide to the future procedural order.

First published in 1998, this volume focuses critically on the European identity of the law of the European Union, of national law and the law of human rights. It is primarily concerned with the ways in which European identity is created through the rejection of a malign Other constituted in opposition to all that a virtuous Europe and its law, are supposed to be. The construction of this Other is explored in claims of the EU legal order to a unity and coherence transcending the nation-state; in the assertion of a European identity through laws effecting cultural, immigration and security policies; and in the claims to a lofty 'European-ness' made by national law and the European Convention on Human Rights. A major contribution to the understanding of European Law in the terms of the debates over modernity and postmodernity, this book will interest those involved with studies of the European Union and its law, with critical legal studies and also with socio-legal studies.

First published in 1998, this book seeks to consider the application of international human rights standards to situations where children are at risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Each of the contributors authoritatively examines torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment from the perspective of their own discipline and experience. In exploring the issues, Childhood Abused, also helps to raise their profile, as invisibility, ignorance and secrecy contribute to the continuation of such practices. The subject is harrowing and complex, Childhood Abused, needs to be read so that we are better able to prevent and protect children against such abhorrent and prohibited forms of ill-treatment.

Transnational Food Security addresses food security from an international relations, political economy and legal perspective analysing the relationship between food security and the environment and climate change, trade, finance and contracts, and the intersection between food and human rights. The topic of food concerns one of the most basic and profound aspects of human survival. Universal and equal access to food is, at the same time, ridden with problems of power, inequality, distribution and implicated in old and new geopolitical conflicts. As such, 'food' and food security are central to conditions of poverty and hunger, development and 'modernisation', transitional justice and rule of law reform around the world. As a problem of critique and scholarly inquiry, food prompts an inter-disciplinary assessment of the nature of food security in the modern world. The contributors to this book take us deep into the complexity of food and illustrate the challenges of adequately understanding and approaching questions of food security and food sovereignty in a globally interconnected world. Transnational Food Security will be of great interest to scholars of international relations, political economy, and transnational law. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Transnational Legal Theory Journal.

The past few decades have witnessed an increase in the number international human rights treaties, their incorporation into domestic jurisdictions as well as the proliferation of wider public discourse on human rights. 'Human rights' has taken centre stage as an international political goal, however much of this talk is actually about human rights law.
This book starts from a new and provocative premise: that the relationship between human rights and their legal expression is not a straightforward one, but needs to be examined more closely. The volume, therefore, scrutinises the extent to which legalisation shapes the human rights ideal, and surveys its ethical, political and practical repercussions. The expert contributors to the volume approach these issues from a variety of different perspectives: political theory/moral theory, anthropology, sociology, international law, international politics and political science and demonstrate a diversity of methodologies.
This book invites students and researchers of human rights to question the gap between human rights as a moral and political concept, and human rights law, provoking the reader to consider the possibilities of deliberation on human rights outside of their legal manifestations.

The last two decades have seen major advances in the legal protection of the human rights of women around the world. A series of international and national court cases has developed an important body of jurisprudence that has been relied on by courts and advocates in many countries to support women's claims for equality and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Growing out of a series of judicial colloquia organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat, this compilation brings together a selection of over fifty significant cases from international and national courts. The cases are grouped by theme and presented in full text or edited format. Together they highlight the way in which courts have used international human rights norms and national constitutional standards to contribute to women's equality. A detailed introduction provides a summary of the significance of the cases and references further material available on women's human rights.

Cases decided under United Nations human rights treaties, the European and American Conventions on Human Rights and other international instruments, as well as cases decided by national courts in Asia, Africa, Europe, Australasia, and North America are all included. The compilation will be of interest to all those with an interest in the advancement of the human rights of women especially equality advocates, lawyers and judges, scholars and students.

The past few decades have witnessed an increase in the number international human rights treaties, their incorporation into domestic jurisdictions as well as the proliferation of wider public discourse on human rights. 'Human rights' has taken centre stage as an international political goal, however much of this talk is actually about human rights law.
This book starts from a new and provocative premise: that the relationship between human rights and their legal expression is not a straightforward one, but needs to be examined more closely. The volume, therefore, scrutinises the extent to which legalisation shapes the human rights ideal, and surveys its ethical, political and practical repercussions. The expert contributors to the volume approach these issues from a variety of different perspectives: political theory/moral theory, anthropology, sociology, international law, international politics and political science and demonstrate a diversity of methodologies.
This book invites students and researchers of human rights to question the gap between human rights as a moral and political concept, and human rights law, provoking the reader to consider the possibilities of deliberation on human rights outside of their legal manifestations.

This volume explores the relationship between human rights and democracy within both the theoretical and empirical field. It is a book within the tradition of deliberative democracy, although it focuses on global institutions and human rights rather than nation-state or federalist democracy. Eva Erman problematizes the absence of political rights in the global human rights discourse from a deliberative standpoint. Starting out from and at the same time criticizing Habermas' discourse theory of law and democracy, she makes a significant contribution to a discourse theory of human rights and applies it to a global rights institution, the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights. This is an innovative study that offers tools for democratizing existing global political institutions, and is therefore suitable for philosophers, political theorists, scholars of human rights and those interested in democracy.

This book explores the journey of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as it is interpreted and translated from International Human Rights Law into domestic law and policy in different cultural contexts. Beginning with reflections on 'culture', 'disability' and 'human rights' from different disciplinary perspectives, the work is then organised as 'snapshots' of the journey of the CRPD from the international level to the domestic; the process of ratification, the process of implementation, and then the process of monitoring the CRPD's implementation in States Parties cultural contexts. Leading global contributors provide cutting-edge accounts of the interactions between the CRPD and diverse cultures, revealing variations in the way that the concept of 'culture' is defined. This collection will appeal to academics and students in Law and Socio-Legal Studies, Disability Studies, Policy Studies and Social Work, Sociology, Anthropology; and those training to be service providers with persons with disabilities.

This title was first published in 2003. The fulfilment of health care rights in a world where resources are scarce is a prominent issue. In this volume, Frances H. Miller introduces studies on a wide variety of aspects of this important yet complex process.

The Universal Periodic Review is an intriguing and ambitious development in human rights monitoring which breaks new ground by engaging all 193 members of the United Nations. This book provides the first sustained analysis of the Review and explains how the Review functions within the architecture of the United Nations. It draws on socio-legal scholarship and the insights of human rights practitioners with direct experience of the Review in order to consider its regulatory power and its capacity to influence the behaviour of states. It also highlights the significance of the embodied features of the Review, with its cyclical and intricately managed interactive dialogues. Additionally, it discusses the rituals associated with the Review, examines the tendency of the Review towards hollow ritualism (which undermines its aspiration to address human rights violations comprehensively) and suggests how this ritualism might be overcome.

This book presents the findings of the first comprehensive study on the most recent and most unique and innovative method of monitoring international human rights law at the United Nations. Since its existence, there has yet to be a complete and comprehensive book solely dedicated to exploring the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. Women and International Human Rights Law provides a much-needed insight to what the process is, how it operates in practice, and whether it meets its fundamental aim of promoting the universality of all human rights. The book addresses the topics with regard to international human rights law and will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students interested in the monitoring and implementation of international human rights law at the United Nations. In addition, it will form supplementary reading for those students studying international human rights law on undergraduate programmes and will also appeal to academics and students with interests in political sciences and international relations.

In this moment of unprecedented humanitarian crises, the representations of global disasters are increasingly common media themes around the world. The Routledge Companion to Media and Humanitarian Action explores the interconnections between media, old and new, and the humanitarian challenges that have come to define the twenty-first century. Contributors, including media professionals and experts in humanitarian affairs, grapple with what kinds of media language, discourse, terms, and campaigns can offer enough context and background knowledge to nurture informed global citizens. Case studies of media practices, content analysis and evaluation of media coverage, and representations of humanitarian emergencies and affairs offer further insight into the ways in which strategic communications are designed and implemented in field of humanitarian action.

Although human rights belong to all persons on the basis of their humanity, this book demonstrates that in the practice of international human rights law, the freedom to be non-religious or atheist does not receive the same protection as the freedom to be religious. Despite the claimed universality of freedom of religion and belief contained in article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the key assertion made is that there is a hierarchy of religion and belief, with followers of major established religions enjoying high protection and low regulation at the top, and atheists and non-believers enduring high persecution and weaker protection at the bottom. The existence of this hierarchy is proven and critiqued through three case study chapters that respectively explore the extent to which non-religious and atheist rights-holders enjoy freedom from proselytism, freedom from hate and freedom from the religions of their parents.

The digital age began in 1939 with the construction of the first digital computer. In the sixty-five years that have followed, the influence of digitisation on our everyday lives has grown steadily and today digital technology has a greater influence on our lives than at any time since its development. This book examines the role played by digital technology in both the exercise and suppression of human rights. The global digital environment has allowed us to reinterpret the concept of universal human rights. Discourse on human rights need no longer be limited by national or cultural boundaries and individuals have the ability to create new forms in which to exercise their rights or even to bypass national limitations to rights. The defence of such rights is meanwhile under constant assault by the newfound ability of states to both suppress and control individual rights through the application of these same digital technologies. This book gathers together an international group of experts working within this rapidly developing area of law and technology and focuses their attantion on the specific interaction between human rights and digital technology. This is the first work to explore the challenges brought about by digital technology to fundamental freedoms such as privacy, freedom of expression, access, assembly and dignity. It is essential reading for anyone who fears digital technology will lead to the 'Big Brother' state.