What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights?
This book offers the first comprehensive survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focusses firstly on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. Secondly, it looks at the implications that different moral perspectives on human rights bear for human rights law and politics. Thirdly, it discusses specific and topical human rights including freedom of expression and religion, security, health and more controversial rights such as a human right to subsistence. The final part discusses nuanced critical and reformative views on human rights from feminist, Kantian and relativist perspectives among others.
The essays represent new and canonical research by leading scholars in the field. Each section is structured as a set of essays and replies, offering a comprehensive analysis of different positions within the debate in question. The introduction from the editors will guide researchers and students navigating the diversity of views on the philosophical foundations of human rights.

Criminalization is a new series arising from an interdisciplinary investigation into the issue of criminalization, focussing on the principles and goals that should guide decisions about what kinds of conduct are to be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the six volumes will tackle the key questions at the heart of issue: By reference to what principles and goals should legislations decide what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? And how should law enforcement officials apply the law's specification of offences? The second volume in the series concerns itself with the structures of criminal law in three different senses. The first examines the internal structure of the criminal law itself and the questions posed by familiar distinctions between which offences are typically analysed. These questions of classification include discussion of the growing range of crimes and the problems posed by this broadening of definition. Should traditional ideas and conceptions of the criminal law be reshaped in light of recent developments or should these developments be criticized and refuted? Structures of criminal law also refer to the place of the criminal law within the larger structure of the law. Here the book examines the relationships with and between the criminal law and other aspects of law, particularly private law and public law. It also looks at how the criminal law is made, and by whom. Finally the third sense of structure is outlined - the relationships between legal structures and social and political structures. What place does the criminal law have within the existing political and social landscapes? What are the influences, both political and social, upon the criminal law, and should they be allowed to influence the law in this fashion? What is its proper role? Focussing not only on the questions about the criminal law's proper scope, but also on crucial questions about how crimes should be structured, defined, and classified, this book provides a deeper understanding of criminalization.

The Criminalization series arose from an interdisciplinary investigation into criminalization, focussing on the principles that might guide decisions about what kinds of conduct should be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the series tackles the key questions at the heart of the issue: what principles and goals should guide legislators in deciding what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? How should law enforcement officials apply the law's specifications of offences? The fourth book in the series examines the political morality of the criminal law, exploring general principles and theories of criminalization. Chapters provide accounts of the criminal law in the light of ambitious theories about moral and political philosophy - republicanism and contractarianism, or reflect upon on the success of important theories of criminalization by viewing them in a novel light. Ideas that are fundamental to any complete theory of the criminal law - liberty, harm, and the effect on victims - are investigated in depth. Sociological investigation of the criminal law grounds a critical investigation into the principles of criminalization, both as a legislative matter, and with respect to criminalization practices, in contemporary and historical contexts. The volume broadens our conceptions of the theory of criminalization, and clarifies the role of the series in the development of this theory. It is essential reading for all interested in legal, political, and social theories of criminalization.

The third book in the Criminalization series examines the constitutionalization of criminal law. It considers how the criminal law is constituted through the political processes of the state; how the agents of the criminal law can be answerable to it themselves; and finally, how the criminal law can be constituted as part of the international order. Addressing the ways in which and the grounds on which types of conduct can be justifiably criminalized, the first four chapters of this volume focus on the questions that arise from a consideration of the political constitution of the criminal law. The contributors then turn their attention to the role of the state, its institutions and officials, and their role not only as creators, enactors, interpreters, and enforcers of the criminal law, but also as subjects of it. How can the agents of the criminal law also be answerable to it? Finally discussion turns to how the criminal law can be constituted as part of an international order. Examining the relationships between domestic laws of different nation-states, and between domestic criminal law and international or transnational law, the chapters also look at the authority and jurisdiction of international criminal law itself, and its relationship to other dimensions of the international order. A vital examination of one of the most important topics in modern criminal legal theory, this volume raises new questions central to the study of the criminal law and offers new suggestions for addressing them.

Criminalization is a new series arising from an interdisciplinary investigation into criminalization, focusing on the principles and goals that should guide decisions about what kinds of conduct are to be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the six volumes will tackle the key questions at the heart of the issue: By reference to what principles and goals should legislations decide what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? And how should law enforcement officials apply the law's specification of offenses?
Boundaries of the Criminal Law is the first book in this series examining the scope and boundaries of the criminal law. Investigations into the scope of the criminal law have often focused on the harm principle, the principle that conduct can be justifiably criminalized only if it is harmful, or other master principles that might determine the proper scope of the criminal law. This collection of original essays by some of the leading scholars in criminal law and philosophy from the UK and the US makes significant advances in the development of a broader range of ideas that might inform criminalization decisions.
A range of issues are discussed, including the significance for criminalization of ideas of moral wrongdoing and of using a person as a means, the distinction between criminal law and other forms of legal regulation, the role of new technology in our understanding of the evolving scope of the criminal law, and the role of criminal justice officials in decision-making about criminalization. The authors draw on legal and philosophical sources, but also on history, sociology and social psychology in their investigations for a truly interdisciplinary approach.
This is a groundbreaking set of essays which will help to reorient legal and philosophical discussion about the proper scope of the criminal law.

What makes something a human right? What is the relationship between the moral foundations of human rights and human rights law? What are the difficulties of appealing to human rights?
This book offers the first comprehensive survey of current thinking on the philosophical foundations of human rights. Divided into four parts, this book focusses firstly on the moral grounds of human rights, for example in our dignity, agency, interests or needs. Secondly, it looks at the implications that different moral perspectives on human rights bear for human rights law and politics. Thirdly, it discusses specific and topical human rights including freedom of expression and religion, security, health and more controversial rights such as a human right to subsistence. The final part discusses nuanced critical and reformative views on human rights from feminist, Kantian and relativist perspectives among others.
The essays represent new and canonical research by leading scholars in the field. Each section is structured as a set of essays and replies, offering a comprehensive analysis of different positions within the debate in question. The introduction from the editors will guide researchers and students navigating the diversity of views on the philosophical foundations of human rights.