This book explores the right to democracy in international law and contemporary democratic theory, asking whether international law encompasses a substantive or procedural understanding of the notion. The book considers whether there can be considered to be a basis for the right to democracy in international customary law through identification of the relevant State practice and opinio juris, as well as through an evaluation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and whether the relevant provisions might be interpreted as forming customary law. The book then goes on to explore the relevant provisions in international treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights before looking at the role of regional organizations and human rights regimes including the European Court of Human Rights and the Arab human rights regime. Khalifa A. Alfadhel draws on the work of John Rawls in order to put forward a theoretical basis for the right to democracy.

Set adjacent to "victims" and "bystanders," "perpetrators" are by no means marginalized figures in human rights scholarship. Nevertheless, the extent to which the perpetrator is not only socially imagined but also sociologically constructed remains a central concern in studies of state-authorized mass violence. This interdisciplinary collection of essays builds upon such work by strategically interrogating the terms through which such a figure is read via law, society, and culture. Of particular concern to the contributors to this volume are the ways in which notions of "violation" and "culpability" are mediated through less direct, convoluted frames of corporatization, globalization, militarized humanitarianism, post-conflict truth and justice processes, and postcoloniality. The chapters variously give scrutiny to historical memory (who can voice it, when and in what registers), question legalism's dominance within human rights, and analyse the story-telling values invested in the figure of the perpetrator. Against the common tendency to view perpetrators as either monsters or puppets - driven by evil or controlled by others - the chapters in this book are united by the themes of truth's contingency and complex imaginings of perpetrators. Even as the truth that emerges from perpetrator testimony may depend on who is listening, with what attitude and in what institutional context, the book's chapters also affirm that listening to perpetrators may be every bit as productive of human rights insights as it has been to listen to survivors and witnesses. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

This book explores the increasing concern over the extent to which those suffering from forced cross-border displacement as a result of environmental change are protected under international human rights law. Formally they are not entitled to admission or stay in a third state country, a situation that has been identified as an international "legal protection gap". The book seeks to provide answers to two basic questions: whether and to what extent existing international law protects cross-border environmental displacement, and whether and how existing formalized regional complementary protection standards can interpretively solidify and conceptualize protection for cross-border environmental displacement. The discussion outlines that the protection of the human person is not only an ex post facto obligation of states, but must be increasingly seen as an ex ante one. The analysis further suggests that the European Union regionally orientated protection regime can help states to consolidate an evolving protection paradigm of proactive and reactive measures being erected at the international level. It can also narrow the identified legal protection gaps. In so doing, it helps states to reconceptualise protection as a holistic and dynamic enterprise. This book will be of great interest to academics in law, political science and human rights, policy makers and civil society organisations both at national and international level.

The growing field of urban law demands a collaborative scholarly focus on comparative and global perspectives. This volume offers diverse insights into urban law, with emerging theories and analyses of topics ranging from criminal reform and urban housing, to social and economic inequality and financial crises, and democratization and freedom for individual identity and space. Particularly now, social, economic, and cultural issues must be closely examined in conjunction with the rule of law not only to address inadequate access to basic services, but also to construct long-term plans for our cities and our world-a bright, safe future.

The orthodox view is that rights complement democracy. This book critically examines this view in the context of EU fundamental rights, specifically in situations where EU law requires member states to respect EU fundamental rights. It first sets out a legal theoretical account of how human rights can complement democracy. It argues that they can do so only if they are understood as both the conditions for the democratic process, and the outcome of such a democratic process. In light of this legal theoretical account of human rights, this book examines the demands which the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) imposes on the national orders in respect of EU fundamental rights. The conclusion reached is that the demands which EU fundamental rights impose on national legal orders entail a cost for the democratic legitimacy of those legal orders. Ultimately, accepting the demands of the CJEU in respect of EU fundamental rights may require the national legal order to abandon its commitment to protecting the human rights which are the foundation of the national legal order's very legitimacy.

Leading Works in Law and Religion brings together leading and emerging scholars in the field from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Each contributor has been invited to select and analyse a 'leading work', which has for them shed light on the way that Law and Religion are intertwined. The chapters are both autobiographical, reflecting upon the works that have proved significant to contributors, and also critical analyses of the current state of the field, exploring in particular the interdisciplinary potential of the study of Law and Religion. The book also includes a specially written introduction and conclusion, which critically comment upon the development of Law and Religion over the last 25 years and likely future developments in light of the reflections by contributors on their chosen leading works.

Recent confrontations between constitutional courts and parliamentary majorities, for example in Poland and Hungary, have attracted international interest in the relationship between the judiciary and the legislature in Central and Eastern European countries. Several political actors have argued that courts have assumed too much power after the democratic transformation process in 1989/1990. These claims are explicitly or implicitly connected to the charge that courts have constrained the room for manoeuvre of the legislatures too heavily and that they have entered the field of politics. Nevertheless, the question to what extent has this aggregation of power constrained the dominant political actors has never been examined accurately and systematically in the literature. The present volume fills this gap by applying an innovative research methodology to quantify the impact and effect of court's decisions on legislation and legislators, and measure the strength of judicial decisions in six CEE countries.

Is the legal protection that is given to the expression of Abrahamic religious belief adequate or appropriate in the context of English medical law? This is the central question that is explored in this book, which develops a framework to support judges in the resolution of contentious cases that involve dissension between religious belief and medical law, developed from Alan Gewirth's Principle of Generic Consistency (PGC). This framework is applied to a number of medical law case studies: the principle of double effect, ritual male circumcision, female genital mutilation, Jehovah's Witnesses (adults and children) who refuse blood transfusions, and conscientious objection of healthcare professionals to abortion. The book also examines the legal and religious contexts in which these contentious cases are arbitrated. It demonstrates how human rights law and the proposed framework can provide a gauge to measure competing rights and apply legitimate limits to the expression of religious belief, where appropriate. The book concludes with a stance of principled pragmatism, which finds that some aspects of current legal protections in English medical law require amendment.

In this book Kerry O'Halloran analyses a subject of international interest - religion - and examines related contemporary issues from a human rights perspective. The book takes the view that while the impact of Islamic State violence has dramatically demonstrated the destructive power of religious extremism for contemporary western societies, there are also good grounds for the latter to examine the extent to which their laws and policies - nationally and internationally - are contributing to religion's currently destabilizing social role. It makes the case for a fuller understanding of the role of religion or belief and argues for a rebalancing of the functional relationship between Church and State both nationally and internationally. Beginning with an overview of religion, including an examination of key concepts and constructs, the chapters go on to outline the international framework of related human rights provisions and note the extent of their ratification. It proceeds by identifying a set of themes - such as the Constitutional positioning of religion; law and policy in relation to secularism; faith schools; equality legislation and the religious exemption; and the tension between free speech and religion - and undertakes a comparative evaluation of how these and other themes indicate significant differences in six leading common law jurisdictions as illustrated by their associated legislation and case law. It then considers why this should be and assesses any implications arising. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the fields of law, religious studies, political science, human rights and social policy.

Various legal approaches have been taken internationally to improve global access to essential medicines for people in developing countries. This book focuses on the millions of people suffering from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Beginning with the AIDS campaign for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, Sharifah Sekalala argues that a soft law approach is more effective than hard law by critiquing the current TRIPS flexibilities within the World Trade Organization. She then considers how soft law has also been instrumental in the fight against malaria and tuberculosis. Using these compelling case studies, this book explores lawmaking on global health and analyses the viability of current global health financing trends within new and traditional organisations such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, UNITAID and The Global Fund. This book is essential reading for legal, development, policy and health scholars, activists and policymakers working across political economy, policy studies and global health studies.

Today, the concept of "the refugee" as distinct from other migrants looms large. Immigration laws have developed to reinforce a dichotomy between those viewed as voluntary, often economically motivated, migrants who can be legitimately excluded by potential host states, and those viewed as forced, often politically motivated, refugees who should be let in. In Crossing, Rebecca Hamlin argues against advocacy positions that cling to this distinction. Everything we know about people who decide to move suggests that border crossing is far more complicated than any binary, or even a continuum, can encompass. Drawing on cases of various "border crises" across Europe, North America, South America, and the Middle East, Hamlin outlines major inconsistencies and faulty assumptions on which the binary relies. The migrant/refugee binary is not just an innocuous shorthand-indeed, its power stems from the way in which it is painted as apolitical. In truth, the binary is a dangerous legal fiction, politically constructed with the ultimate goal of making harsh border control measures more ethically palatable to the public. This book is a challenge to all those invested in the rights and study of migrants to move toward more equitable advocacy for all border crossers.

This edited collection provides a comprehensive, insightful, and detailed study of a vital area of public policy debate as it is currently occurring in countries across the world from India to South Africa and the United Kingdom to Australia. Bringing together academics and experts from a variety of jurisdictions, it reflects upon the impact on human rights of the application of more than a decade of the "War on Terror" as enunciated soon after 9/11. The volume identifies and critically examines the principal and enduring resonances of the concept of the "War on Terror". The examination covers not only the obvious impacts but also the more insidious and enduring changes within domestic laws. The rationale for this collection is therefore not just to plot how the "War on Terror" has operated within the folds of the cloak of liberal democracy, but how they render that cloak ragged, especially in the sight of those sections of society who pay the heaviest price in terms of their human rights. This book engages with the public policy strand of the last decade that has arguably most shaped perceptions of human rights and engendered debates about their worth and meaning. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of human rights law, criminal justice, criminology, politics, and international studies.

Originally published in 1998, Sexual Harassment in Higher Education addresses the problem of sexual harassment on college campuses. This work reflects on a variety of aspects of sexual harassment, its litigation and law, as well as how the issues they demonstrate often have as much to do with linguistics or jurisprudence as with negative action, though there is a great deal of evidence of the latter. The book provides a clear-eyed and detailed assessment of the 'harassment' controversies now plaguing America's universities and colleges.

This volume examines the success of the 9/11 attacks in undermining the cherished principles of Western democracy, free speech and tolerance, which were central to US values. It is argued that this has led to the USA fighting disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to sanctioning the use of torture and imprisonment without trial in Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, surveillance and drone attacks. At home, it has resulted in restrictions of civil liberties and the growth of an ill-affordable military and security apparatus. In this collection the authors note the irony that the shocking destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 should become the justification for the relentless expansion of security agencies. Yet, this is a salutary illustration of how the security agencies in the USA have adopted faulty preconceptions, which have become too embedded within the institution to be abandoned without loss of credibility and prestige. The book presents a timely assessment of both the human rights costs of the 'war on terror' and the methods used to wage and relentlessly continue that war. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners and students in the fields of human rights law, criminal justice, criminology, politics and international studies.

Military justice systems across the world are in a state of transition. These changes are due to a combination of both domestic and international legal pressures. The domestic influences include constitutional principles, bills of rights and the presence of increasingly strong oversight bodies such as parliamentary committees. Military justice has also come under pressure from international law, particularly when applied on operations. The common theme in these many different influences is the growing role of external legal principles and institutions on military justice. This book provides insights from both scholars and practitioners on reforms to military justice in individual countries (including the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia) and in wider regions (for example, South Asia and Latin America). It also analyses the impact of 'civilianisation', the changing nature of operations and the decisions of domestic and international courts on efforts to reform military justice.

Human rights are at risk. Issues such as the climate crisis, ongoing conflicts in Europe and beyond, attacks on and the suppression of minorities, rapid technological changes, a war on information and the regression of democracy and the rule of law, just to name a few, challenge and question the effect of human rights. The European Yearbook on Human Rights 2022 aims to identify and address a variety of the most pressing human rights issues in Europe and beyond.Renowned scholars, emerging voices and practitioners, in a careful selection of chapters, contribute to critical and important discussions related to, for example, climate change litigation, human rights and artificial intelligence and the right to open science. Thereby, the Yearbook stimulates necessary discussions, critical thinking and further research in the field and thus contributes to upholding human rights as guiding standards and principles in these tumultuous times.

In The Political Uncommons, Kathryn Milun presents a cultural history of the global commons: those domains, including the atmosphere, the oceans, the radio frequency spectrum, the earth's biodiversity, and its outer space, designated by international law as belonging to no single individual or nation state but rather to all humankind. From the res communis of Roman property law to early modern laws establishing the freedom of the seas, from the legal battles over the neutrality of the internet to the heritage of the earth's genetic diversity, Milun connects ancient, modern, and postmodern legal traditions of global commons. Arguing that the logic of legal institutions governing global commons is connected to the logic of colonial doctrines that dispossessed indigenous peoples of their land, she demonstrates that the failure of international law to adequately govern the earth's atmosphere and waters can be more deeply understood as a cultural logic that has successfully dispossessed humankind of basic subsistence rights. The promise of global commons, Milun shows, has always been related to subsistence rights and an earth that human communities have long imagined as 'common' existing alongside private and public domains. Utilizing specific case studies, The Political Uncommons opens a way to consider how global commons regimes might benefit from the cross-cultural logics found where indigenous peoples have gained recognition of their common tenure systems in Western courts.

This book tackles a complex area of law, social policy and social work, providing a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical, practical and legal boundaries of State power following safeguarding and child protection referrals in England. The book examines the history, rationale and implications of the current position, concluding that the balance of power is weighted in favour of the State. The Limits of State Power & Private Rights is ground-breaking in its approach to the subject and its detailed, critical analysis. Traditionally the subject matter of the book is considered within a welfare framework. The analysis in this book argues that a policing agenda is embedded within policy but without appropriate safeguards and controls, creating potentially irreconcilable tension described by the author as the 'welfare/policing dichotomy'. This book is of importance to academics, lawyers, social workers, policy makers, practitioners and service users. The book is written so as to be accessible to a multi-disciplinary audience, but is sufficiently detailed so as to be suitable for specialists and non-specialists alike in this subject area. The chapters include introductory and contextual sections as well as doctrinal, theoretical and socio-legal analysis. Although the focus is on the English system, the book is equally applicable to the many worldwide jurisdictions adopting the Anglo/American 'child rights' based framework of child protection. It is also of use as a comparative work in countries where a family support based system is practiced.

This book provides for an extensive legal analysis of the international drug control system in light of the growing challenges and criticism that this system faces. In the current debate on global drug policy, the central pillars of the international drug control system - the UN Drug Conventions as well as its institutions - are portrayed as outdated, suppressive and seen as an obstacle to necessary changes. The book's objective is to provide an in-depth and positivist insight into drug control's present legal framework and thus provide for a better understanding of the normative assumptions upon which drug control is currently based. This is attained by clarifying the objectives of the international drug control system and the premises by which these objectives are to be achieved. The objective of the current global framework of international drug control is the limitation of drugs to medical and scientific purposes. The meaning of this objective and its concrete implications for States' parties as well as its problems from the perspective of other regimes of international law, most notably international human rights law, are extensively analysed. Additionally, the book focuses on how the international drug control system attempts to reach the objective of confining drugs to medical and scientific purposes, i.e. by setting up a universal system that exercises a rigid control on drug supply. The consequences of this heavy focus on the reduction of drug supply are outlined, and the book concludes by making suggestions on how the international drug control system could be reformed in the near future in order to better meet the existing challenges. The analysis occurs from a general international law perspective. It aims to map the international drug control system within a wider context of international law and to understand whether the problems that the international drug control system faces are exemplary for the difficulties that institutionalized systems of global scope face in the twenty-first century.

Memories of violence, suffering and atrocities in Cambodia are today being pulled in different directions. A range of transitional justice practices have been put to work in the name of redressing, restoring and renewing memory. At the centre of this stage is the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid tribunal established to prosecute the leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime, under which 1.6 million Cambodians died of hunger or disease or were executed. This book unpicks the way memory is reconstructed through appeals to a national memory, the legal reframing and coding of memories as crimes, and bids to locate personal memories within collective biographies. Analysing the techniques and interventions of the ECCC, as well as exploring the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the book explores the relationships in which Cambodian communities navigate memories of political violence. This book is essential for understanding transitional justice in Cambodia in, and beyond, the courtroom. Transitional Justice and Memory in Cambodia shows that the governing logic of transitional justice interventions - that societies are unable to 'deal with' memories of atrocity and violence without some form of transitional justice mechanism - neglects the complexity of memory and remembering in post-atrocity contexts and the agency of the subjects to which such mechanisms are addressed. Drawing on documentary sources, legal transcripts, interviews and participant observation data, the book situates transitional justice processes in Cambodia within a wider context of social and cultural memory politics, examining (old and new) conflicts of memory that have emerged between the varied accounts and uses of the past that exist in Cambodia now. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars in sociology, human rights, law and criminology.

Discussion of the way in which law engages with religious difference often takes place within the context of a single jurisdiction. Religion and Law: An Introduction, presents a comprehensive text for students, drawing on examples from across key Anglophone jurisdictions - the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, as well as international law, to explore a broad range of issues. Aimed at a non-legal readership, this book introduces the use of legal sources and focuses on factual situations as much as legal doctrine. Key issues arising from interaction of the religious individual and the State are discussed, as well as the religious organisation or community and the State. The interaction is explored through case studies of areas as diverse as the legal regulation of religious drug use, sacred spaces and sacred places, and claims of clergy misconduct. Taking a broad, non-jurisdictional approach to the key issues, in particular providing insights differing from the dominant US experiences and paradigms, this student-friendly textbook includes a clearly structured bibliography and clear guidance on how to approach relevant legal materials.

Topical discussion of how social bureaucracies are increasingly used as a means to control immigration and mobility

The United States has uncritically exported its law and policy on gender violence without regard to effectiveness or cultural context, and without asking what we might learn from efforts to combat gender violence in the rest of the world. This book asks that question. Comparative Perspectives on Gender Violence: Lessons From Efforts Worldwide documents the global scope of gender violence, from countries where the legal response is just emerging to countries with longstanding law and policy regimes. Informed by international human rights law, Comparative Perspectives on Gender Violence examines policy successes and failures and grassroots efforts to elicit a robust and proactive response from China to Chile. From the work of local activists to stem the tide of sexual and intimate partner violence after the Haitian earthquake of 2005, to the efforts to eradicate dowry-related violence in India, to the public education campaigns to prevent domestic violence in Scotland, Comparative Perspectives on Gender Violence offers a comprehensive vision of efforts around the world to eradicate gender based violence. Featuring the work of leading gender violence academics and activists around the world, Comparative Perspectives on Gender Violence provides a new lens through which to consider U.S. efforts to address gender violence.

This book responds to ongoing calls for clarification and consensus regarding the meaning, scope and interplay of humanitarian law and human rights law in the 'grey zones' of unconventional operational environments such as counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. It contributes to the debate in this area by developing objective criteria for determining where the shift from the legal framework of law enforcement to that of non-international armed conflict occurs in relation to targeting law and weaponry law; by developing improved objective criteria for determining what constitutes direct participation in hostilities and de facto membership in an organised armed group; by taking stock of how existing targeting and weaponry rules are being applied to unconventional conflicts within civilian populated areas by key state players as well as by international and regional human rights mechanisms; by arguing for the progressive realisation of targeting and weaponry law so that they are more fitting for operational environments that are increasingly urbanised and civilianised; by seeking to understand how global networked connectivity may affect our understanding of the operational theatre of war and the geographical reach of the legal framework of non-international armed conflict.

This open access book deals with Article 7 TEU measures, court proceedings, financial sanctions and the EU Rule of Law Framework to protect EU values with a particular focus on checks and balances in EU Member States. It analyses substantive standards, powers, procedures as well as the consequences and implications of the various instruments. It combines the analysis of the European level, be it the EU or the Council of Europe, with that of the national level, in particular in Hungary and Poland. The LM judgment of the European Court of Justice is made subject to detailed scrutiny.