Global Justice and the Bulwarks of Localism: Human Rights in Context
Global Justice and the Bulwarks of Localism: Human Rights in Context

Author: Christopher Eisgruber

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2005-09-01

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 9047416007

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The rise of international human rights during the last half of the twentieth century has transformed traditional notions of sovereignty. No longer is international law concerned almost exclusively with external relations among states and their representatives. Now, it imposes substantial restrictions on the domestic affairs of states and protects ordinary persons against mistreatment by their own government. The change came about in response to the Holocaust and the century’s other great tragedies. Few doubt its value. Nevertheless, power exercised in the name of human rights can be misused or abused. As human rights institutions matured, and as international organizations intervened more vigorously on a global scale, human rights advocates and their critics worried about whether quests to vindicate supposedly universal human rights might sometimes impose western, first-world norms on cultures that did not want them. In this volume, internationally noted scholars collaborate to address issues about human rights and local culture from philosophical, legal, anthropological and sociological perspectives. Their essays focus on topics including self-determination, religion, truth & reconciliation commissions, and sexual mores.

Working on Rights
Working on Rights

Author: Anna Delius

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-11-20

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 3110768917

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This book is the first to connect global labor history and the history of human rights: By focusing on democratic labor oppositions in Spain and Poland between 1960 and 1990, it shows how workers in authoritarian regimes addressed repression and whether they developed a language of rights in the light of a globally dynamic human rights discourse. The study argues that the democratic labor oppositions in Spain and Poland were both variants of emancipatory and democracy-oriented social movements with global interconnections that emerged in the 1960s. It reveals that the demands for free and independent trade unions, which in both countries became a flashpoint in the fight for broader democratic demands, was not always discussed in rights terms, but rather presented as an inevitable necessity. At the same time, these labor movements and their intellectual allies morally delegitimized state repression against workers and thereby employed the concepts of democracy, participation, solidarity, progress and eventually, rights. Integrating the history of two European semi-peripheric societies into a broader narrative, this book is relevant for readers interested in global labor history, human rights history and the history of democratization in Europe in the late twentieth century.

State-Religion Relationships and Human Rights Law
State-Religion Relationships and Human Rights Law

Author: Jeroen Temperman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 9004181482

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This book presents a human rights-based assessment of the various modes of state religion identification and of the various forms of state practice that characterize these different state religion models. This book makes a case for the recognition of a state duty to remain impartial with respect to religion or belief in all regards so as to comply with people s fundamental right to be governed, at all times, in a religiously neutral manner. As this book demonstrates through the various case studies there is increasing interest and concern at the manner in which questions concerning the enjoyment of the right to the freedom of religion or belief bear upon key questions concerning the governance of democratic society. Issues raised involve matters concerning employment, education, expression, association and, more generally, the interface between religion and political life. The existing literature often traces these concerns back to the need to consider the place of religion in contemporary society but leaves matters there. Another body of academic literature explores the theoretical dimensions of that relationship but fails to connect it to the practice of states in order to test out the propositions which are the product of these reflections. The great virtue of this work is that is seeks to unite these various enterprises and engages head on with the challenges which this produces The aim is to demonstrate and illustrate the key contention: that there is an emergent right to religiously neutral governance, and that this is incompatible with the continuation of systems which offer preference to particular forms of belief system religious or otherwise. A chief virtue of this book is that it works through the consequences of this claim in a fearless fashion, posing challenges for those states which continue to use their legal frameworks to offer support (directly or indirectly) for historical, dominant or favoured forms of religion or belief. It challenges received assumptions and, by driving the logic of contemporary human rights thinking to the foundations of state-religion relationships performs a valuable service for those engaging with this most difficult and timely of questions. Malcolm D. Evans, Professor of Public International Law, University of Bristol

The Justice Facade
The Justice Facade

Author: Alexander Hinton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-03-16

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0192552910

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What is Justice? Is it always just 'to come'? Can real experience be translated into law? Examining Cambodia's troubled reconciliation, Alexander Hinton suggests an approach to justice founded on global ideals of the rule of law, democratization, and a progressive trajectory towards liberty and freedom, and which seeks to align the country with so called universal modes of thought, is condemned to failure. Instead, Hinton advocates focusing on the individual lived experience, and the discourses, interstices, and the combustive encounters connected with it, as a radical alternative. A phenomenology inspired approach towards healing national trauma, Hinton's ground-breaking text will make anybody with an interest in transitional justice, development, humanitarian intervention, human rights, or peacebuilding, question the value of an established truth.

The Human Rights Dictatorship
The Human Rights Dictatorship

Author: Ned Richardson-Little

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-04-23

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1108424678

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Richardson-Little exposes the forgotten history of human rights in the German Democratic Republic, placing the history of the Cold War, Eastern European dissidents and the revolutions of 1989 in a new light. By demonstrating how even a communist dictatorship could imagine itself to be a champion of human rights, this book challenges popular narratives on the fall of the Berlin Wall and illustrates how notions of human rights evolved in the Cold War as they were re-imagined in East Germany by both dissidents and state officials. Ultimately, the fight for human rights in East Germany was part of a global battle in the post-war era over competing conceptions of what human rights meant. Nonetheless, the collapse of dictatorship in East Germany did not end this conflict, as citizens had to choose for themselves what kind of human rights would follow in its wake.

Human Rights and Good Governance
Human Rights and Good Governance

Author: Wei Zhang

Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

Published: 2016-03-11

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9004308776

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The Chinese Perspectives on Human Rights and Good Governance series reviews various aspects of human rights and good governance in China, including international human rights standards, specific substantive rights protection and rule of law, as well as constitutionalism, especially in the context of contemporary China. Its aim is to stimulate discussion on these and related topics, with a focus on international standards whenever these are applicable and relevant to China. In this first volume in the series, the contributors adopt different disciplinary approaches to look at China both in the context of its internal constraints and as a global player in the overall development of human rights. Where is China headed in the near future? Does Chinese culture stand in contradiction to human rights? Is the rule of law alien to Chinese society? Can China move ahead without political reforms? In this thought-provoking volume, leading Chinese and Western scholars offer analysis of these issues, also with reference to Chinese history and contemporary culture.

Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs
Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs

Author: Rogers M. Smith

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2011-01-19

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13: 0812204662

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From anxiety about Muslim immigrants in Western Europe to concerns about undocumented workers and cross-border security threats in the United States, disputes over immigration have proliferated and intensified in recent years. These debates are among the most contentious facing constitutional democracies, and they show little sign of fading away. Edited and with an introduction by political scientist Rogers M. Smith, Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs brings together essays by leading international scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the economic, cultural, political, and normative aspects of comparative immigration policies. In the first section, contributors go beyond familiar explanations of immigration's economic effects to explore whose needs are truly helped and harmed by current migration patterns. The concerns of receiving countries include but are not limited to their economic interests, and several essays weigh different models of managing cultural identity and conflict in democracies with large immigrant populations. Other essays consider the implications of immigration for politics and citizenship. In many nations, large-scale immigration challenges existing political institutions, which must struggle to foster political inclusion and accommodate changing ways of belonging to the polity. The volume concludes with contrasting reflections on the normative standards that should guide immigration policies in modern constitutional democracies. Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs develops connections between thoughtful scholarship and public policy, thereby advancing public debate on these complex and divisive issues. Though most attention in the collection is devoted to the dilemmas facing immigrant-receiving countries in the West, the volume also explores policies and outcomes in immigrant-sending countries, as well as the situation of developing nations—such as India—that are net receivers of migrants.

Law and Memory
Law and Memory

Author: Uladzislau Belavusau

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-10-19

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 1108101283

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Legal governance of memory has played a central role in establishing hegemony of monumental history, and has forged national identities and integration processes in Europe and beyond. In this book, a range of contributors explore both the nature and role of legal engagement into historical memory in selected national law, European and international law. They also reflect on potential conflicts between legal governance, political pluralism, and fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression. In recent years, there have been numerous monumental commemoration practices and judicial trials about correlated events all over the world, and this is a prime opportunity to undertake an important global comparative scrutiny of memory laws. Against the background of mass re-writing of history in different parts of the world, this book revisits a fascinating subject of memory laws from the standpoint of comparative law and transitional justice.

The European Image of God and Man
The European Image of God and Man

Author: Hans-Christian Günther

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-10-07

Total Pages: 524

ISBN-13: 9004193782

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The present volumes unites papers which explore the European image of god and man as the unquestioned basis of the concept which determines what western society defines as human rights and puts it in an intercultural context by comparative essays on chinese, islamic and buddhist thinking. The volume covers issues which range from classical antiquity until contemporary philosophy and science.

Female Genital Mutilation around The World:
Female Genital Mutilation around The World:

Author: Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-09

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 3319780077

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This book uses global household data to examine the prevalence, trends and geographic variation of female genital mutilation (FGM) around the world. It also addresses the underlying legal and policy aspects as well as explores the medical consequences, both immediate and long term, for those undergoing the practice. The book analyses the position of victims of this gender-based violence both from the medical and legal perspective and adopts a largely practical approach to the study of the practices, offering a fresh thinking into one of the challenges in global health and the law. In addition, it offers some insights into how health professionals can approach this category of victims and how legal practitioners can obtain a good legal result for their clients before domestic and international forums. The book addresses fundamental issues such as state liability and defences in enforcement proceedings for actions or omission of state or non-state actors, and due diligence standard in international human rights law, the main gateways available for obtaining relief for the victims of FGM. This book goes beyond the traditional debate between zero tolerance and those who wish to see the practice medicalised and tolerated and favours an advocacy programme standing firmly in favour of the right of FGM victims. This book offers a unique perspective likely to assist victims and their representatives to secure a remedy against perpetrators and the state. As such this book will be of interest to medical professionals, national and international lawyers, academics and policymakers in the field of public health.