The proper role of government is among the most politically contentious issues of our time. Behind the legal technicalities of recent reforms and disputes in the courts lie issues of profound significance for local democracy. This book shows how fundamental disagreements over the nature of local government and politics permeate the law and how law, in turn, shapes and influences local politics.

More than five years after the commencement of the Human Rights Act 1998, it is timely to evaluate the Act's effectiveness. The focus of Making Rights Real is on the extent to which the Act has delivered on the promise to 'bring rights home'. To that end the book considers how the judiciary, parliament and the executive have performed in the new roles that the Human Rights Act requires them to play and the courts' application of the Act in different legal spheres. This account cuts through the rhetoric and controversy surrounding the Act, generated by its champions and detractors alike, to reach a measured assessment. The true impact in public law, civil law, criminal law and on anti-terrorism legislation are each considered. Finally, the book discusses whether we are now nearer to a new constitutional settlement and to the promised new 'rights culture'.

This book examines how international intelligence cooperation has come to prominence post-9/11 and introduces the main accountability, legal and human rights challenges that it poses. Since the end of the Cold War, the threats that intelligence services are tasked with confronting have become increasingly transnational in nature - organised crime, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. The growth of these threats has impelled intelligence services to cooperate with contemporaries in other states to meet these challenges. While cooperation between certain Western states in some areas of intelligence operations (such as signals intelligence) is longstanding, since 9/11 there has been an exponential increase in both their scope and scale. This edited volume explores not only the challenges to accountability presented by international intelligence cooperation but also possible solutions for strengthening accountability for activities that are likely to remain fundamental to the work of intelligence services. The book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, security studies, international law, global governance and IR in general.

This book examines how international intelligence cooperation has come to prominence post-9/11 and introduces the main accountability, legal and human rights challenges that it poses. Since the end of the Cold War, the threats that intelligence services are tasked with confronting have become increasingly transnational in nature -- organised crime, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. The growth of these threats has impelled intelligence services to cooperate with contemporaries in other states to meet these challenges. While cooperation between certain Western states in some areas of intelligence operations (such as signals intelligence) is longstanding, since 9/11 there has been an exponential increase in both their scope and scale. This edited volume explores not only the challenges to accountability presented by international intelligence cooperation but also possible solutions for strengthening accountability for activities that are likely to remain fundamental to the work of intelligence services. The book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, security studies, international law, global governance and IR in general.

This book examines how key developments in international relations in recent years have affected intelligence agencies and their oversight. Since the turn of the millennium, intelligence agencies have been operating in a tense and rapidly changing security environment. This book addresses the impact of three factors on intelligence oversight: the growth of more complex terror threats, such as those caused by the rise of Islamic State; the colder East-West climate following Russia's intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea; and new challenges relating to the large-scale intelligence collection and intrusive surveillance practices revealed by Edward Snowden. This volume evaluates the impact these factors have had on security and intelligence services in a range of countries, together with the challenges that they present for intelligence oversight bodies to adapt in response. With chapters surveying developments in Norway, Romania, the UK, Belgium, France, the USA, Canada and Germany, the coverage is varied, wide and up-to-date. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, security studies and International Relations.

This book examines how key developments in international relations in recent years have affected intelligence agencies and their oversight. Since the turn of the millennium, intelligence agencies have been operating in a tense and rapidly changing security environment. This book addresses the impact of three factors on intelligence oversight: the growth of more complex terror threats, such as those caused by the rise of Islamic State; the colder East-West climate following Russia's intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea; and new challenges relating to the large-scale intelligence collection and intrusive surveillance practices revealed by Edward Snowden. This volume evaluates the impact these factors have had on security and intelligence services in a range of countries, together with the challenges that they present for intelligence oversight bodies to adapt in response. With chapters surveying developments in Norway, Romania, the UK, Belgium, France, the USA, Canada and Germany, the coverage is varied, wide and up-to-date. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, security studies and International Relations.

Examining the law and public policy relating to religious liberty in Western liberal democracies, this book contains a detailed analysis of the history, rationale, scope, and limits of religious freedom from (but not restricted to) an evangelical Christian perspective. Focussing on United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and EU, it studies the interaction between law and religion at several different levels, looking at the key debates that have arisen. Divided into three parts, the book begins by contrasting the liberal and Christian rationales for and understandings of religious freedom. It then explores central thematic issues: the types of constitutional frameworks within which any right to religious exercise must operate; the varieties of paradigmatic relationships between organized religion and the state; the meaning of 'religion'; the limitations upon individual and institutional religious behaviour; and the domestic and international legal mechanisms that have evolved to address religious conduct. The final part explores key subject areas where current religious freedom controversies have arisen: employment; education; parental rights and childrearing; controls on pro-religious and anti-religious expression; medical treatment; and religious group (church) autonomy. This new edition is fully updated with the growing case law in the area, and features increased coverage of Islam and the flashpoint debates surrounding the accommodation of Muslim beliefs and practices in Anglophone nations.

Examining the law and public policy relating to religious liberty in Western liberal democracies, this book contains a detailed analysis of the history, rationale, scope, and limits of religious freedom from (but not restricted to) an evangelical Christian perspective. Focussing on United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and EU, it studies the interaction between law and religion at several different levels, looking at the key debates that have arisen. Divided into three parts, the book begins by contrasting the liberal and Christian rationales for and understandings of religious freedom. It then explores central thematic issues: the types of constitutional frameworks within which any right to religious exercise must operate; the varieties of paradigmatic relationships between organized religion and the state; the meaning of 'religion'; the limitations upon individual and institutional religious behaviour; and the domestic and international legal mechanisms that have evolved to address religious conduct. The final part explores key subject areas where current religious freedom controversies have arisen: employment; education; parental rights and childrearing; controls on pro-religious and anti-religious expression; medical treatment; and religious group (church) autonomy. This new edition is fully updated with the growing case law in the area, and features increased coverage of Islam and the flashpoint debates surrounding the accommodation of Muslim beliefs and practices in Anglophone nations.

The first volume of its kind, Christianity and Constitutionalism explores the contribution of Christianity to constitutional law and constitutionalism as viewed from the perspectives of history, law, and theology. The authors examine a wide range of key figures, including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Moses, Martin Luther, and Roger Williams, offering innovative and thoughtful analyses of the relationship between religious thought and constitutional law. Part I features contributions from historians and is focused on the historical influence of Christianity on constitutionalism, recounting how the relationship between the Christian faith and fundamental ideas about law, justice, and government has evolved from era to era. Part II offers the analyses of constitutional lawyers, focusing on the normative implications of Christianity for particular themes or topics in constitutional law. The chapters in this section orbit around several central doctrines and principles of this field-including sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy, the separation of powers, human rights, conscience, and federalism-evaluating them from a range of Christian perspectives. Part III rounds out the study with theologians focused on particular Christian doctrines, exploring their constructive and sometimes critical implications for constitutionalism. As a whole, Christianity and Constitutionalism breaks new ground by offering wide-ranging, interdisciplinary contributions to the study of the relationship between the Christian religion and constitutional law.

Christianity and Constitutionalism offers innovative and thoughtful analyses of the relationship between religious thought and constitutional law. Part I features contributions from historians, recounting how the relationship between the Christian faith and fundamental ideas about law, justice, and government has evolved from era to era. Part II provides analyses from constitutional lawyers on the normative implications of Christianity for particular themes in constitutional law, including sovereignty, the rule of law, democracy, the separation of powers, human rights, conscience, and federalism. Part III rounds out the study with theologians focused on particular Christian doctrines, exploring their constructive and sometimes critical implications for constitutionalism. As a whole, Christianity and Constitutionalism breaks new ground by offering wide-ranging, interdisciplinary contributions to the study of the relationship between the Christian religion and constitutional law.

By providing enforceable remedies for breaches of Convention Rights in domestic courts, and in allowing judges to scrutinise parliamentary legislation on human rights grounds, the United Kingdom's Human Rights Act 1998 marked a sea-change in the relationships between the individual and the state, and between the courts and the political branches of government, as they had been traditionally understood. Despite the undeniable practical importance of the Human Rights Act, widespread political and popular scepticism over the nature of rights adjudication and the relationship between human rights laws and-for instance-measures designed to combat terrorism and crime, has prevented the Human Rights Act from being seen as an established and essential part of our constitutional structures. This uncertainty has not however prevented the Human Rights Act from exerting significant constitutional influence within the United Kingdom, within the framework provided by the European Convention and European Court of Human Rights, and beyond. This edited collection of essays therefore seeks to chart the lasting constitutional impact of the Human Rights Act at a point when its political future is far from assured. To that end, chapters examine the relationships between the Human Rights Act and domestic constitutional doctrine, with the Convention's enforcement bodies at Strasbourg and with statutory bills of rights in other common law jurisdictions. Further, the collection goes on to examine the permanence of changes initiated in domestic legal reasoning and process-including to judicial technique and in advocacy-before finally turning to examine how the experience of the Human Rights Act might influence the future development of a Bill of Rights for the United Kingdom.