States of Obligation
States of Obligation

Author: Yanni Kotsonis

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2014-01-01

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 1442643544

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Beginning in the 1860s, the Russian Empire replaced a poll tax system that originated with Peter the Great with a modern system of income and excise taxes. Russia began a transformation of state fiscal power that was also underway across Western Europe and North America. States of Obligation is the first sustained study of the Russian taxation system, the first to study its European and transatlantic context, and the first to expose the essential continuities between the fiscal practices of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Using a wealth of materials from provincial and local archives across Russia, Yanni Kotsonis examines how taxation was simultaneously a revenue-raising and a state-building tool, a claim on the person and a way to produce a new kind of citizenship. During successive political, wartime, and revolutionary crises between 1855 and 1928, state fiscal power was used to forge social and financial unity and fairness and a direct relationship with individual Russians. State power eventually overwhelmed both the private sector economy and the fragile realm of personal privacy. States of Obligation is at once a study in Russian economic history and a reflection on the modern state and the modern citizen.

Liberal Loyalty
Liberal Loyalty

Author: Anna Stilz

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-07-26

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0691139148

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Drawing on Kant, Rousseau, and Habermas, Stilz argues that we owe civic obligations to the state if it is sufficiently just, and that constitutionally enshrined principles of justice in themselves are grounds for obedience to our particular state and for democratic solidarity with our fellow citizens.

Monitoring State Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Monitoring State Compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Author: Ziba Vaghri

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-01-03

Total Pages: 429

ISBN-13: 3030846474

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This open access book presents a discussion on human rights-based attributes for each article pertinent to the substantive rights of children, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It provides the reader with a unique and clear overview of the scope and core content of the articles, together with an analysis of the latest jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For each article of the UNCRC, the authors explore the nature and scope of corresponding State obligations, and identify the main features that need to be taken into consideration when assessing a State’s progressive implementation of the UNCRC. This analysis considers which aspects of a given right are most important to track, in order to monitor States' implementation of any given right, and whether there is any resultant change in the lives of children. This approach transforms the narrative of legal international standards concerning a given right into a set of characteristics that ensure no aspect of said right is overlooked. The book develops a clear and comprehensive understanding of the UNCRC that can be used as an introduction to the rights and principles it contains, and to identify directions for future policy and strategy development in compliance with the UNCRC. As such, it offers an invaluable reference guide for researchers and students in the field of childhood and children’s rights studies, as well as a wide range of professionals and organisations concerned with the subject.

Moral Dilemmas in Real Life
Moral Dilemmas in Real Life

Author: Ovadia Ezra

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-05-26

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1402041055

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Moral Dilemmas in Real Life purports to supply ways of thinking of, perhaps even dealing with, the ins and outs of ethical argument. The world today presents both individuals and communities with situations, which demand moral and ethical deliberations. From the more general issues of universal globalization to the very specific problems of every-day existence encountered by active agents, contemporary life is replete with moral and ethical conundrums. Any thinking person is required, so it seems, to be concerned, involved, or – at the very least – conversant with these issues and this book supplies the wherewithal needed. Applied ethics is that intellectual locale where theory meets praxis. Moral Dilemmas in Real Life is designed to make that meeting point explicit, by presenting a series of issues in well-grounded philosophical formulations. The book begins with the general relation between the individual and society – instilling ethical tension, and even clashes, between the private and the public in our discourse. Going on, from general to specific, it gradually narrows the ethical playing field to touch on medical ethics, the family, and the practice of punishment. In all cases, the book addresses both consensual and conventional social institutions and distortions thereof.

Social Rights and the Politics of Obligation in History
Social Rights and the Politics of Obligation in History

Author: Steven L. B. Jensen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-01-06

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1009020668

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This pioneering volume explores the long-neglected history of social rights, from the Middle Ages to the present. It debunks the myth that social rights are 'second-generation rights' – rights that appeared after World War II as additions to a rights corpus stretching back to the Enlightenment. Not only do social rights stretch back that far; they arguably pre-date the Enlightenment. In tracing their long history across various global contexts, this volume reveals how debates over social rights have often turned on deeper struggles over social obligation – over determining who owes what to whom, morally and legally. In the modern period, these struggles have been intertwined with questions of freedom, democracy, equality and dignity. Many factors have shaped the history of social rights, from class, gender and race to religion, empire and capitalism. With incomparable chronological depth, geographical breadth and conceptual nuance, Social Rights and the Politics of Obligation in History sets an agenda for future histories of human rights.

The Routledge Handbook on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations
The Routledge Handbook on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations

Author: Mark Gibney

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-12-24

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 1000466132

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The Routledge Handbook on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations brings international scholarship on transnational human rights obligations into a comprehensive and wide-ranging volume. Each chapter combines a thorough analysis of a particular issue area and provides a forward-looking perspective of how extraterritorial human rights obligations (ETOs) might come to be more fully recognized, outlining shortcomings but also best state practices. It builds insights gained from state practice to identify gaps in the literature and points to future avenues of inquiry. The Handbook is organized into seven thematic parts: conceptualization and theoretical foundations; enforcement; migration and refugee protection; financial assistance and sanctions; finance, investment and trade; peace and security; and environment. Chapters summarize the cutting edge of current knowledge on key topics as leading experts critically reflect on ETOs, and, where appropriate, engage with the Maastricht Principles to critically evaluate their value 10 years after their adoption. The Routledge Handbook on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations is an authoritative and essential reference text for scholars and students of human rights and human rights law, and more broadly, of international law and international relations as well as to those working in international economic law, development studies, peace and conflict studies, environmental law and migration. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations
Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations

Author: Mark Gibney

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-07-03

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0812204840

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Globalization challenges fundamental principles governing international law, especially with respect to state sovereignty and international relations. This transformation has had a significant impact on the practice of trade law, financial regulation, and environmental law but relatively little effect on one area of law and regulation: human rights. Universal Human Rights and Extraterritorial Obligations examines both the international and domestic foundations of human rights law. What other contemporary human rights debates have almost totally ignored is that in an increasingly interdependent world—where public and private international actors have great influence on the lives of individuals everywhere—it is insufficient to assess only the record of domestic governments in human rights. It is equally important to assess the effect of actions taken by intergovernmental organizations, international private entities, and foreign states. From this standpoint, contributors to this book address how states' actions or omissions may affect the prospects of individuals in foreign states and asks important questions: To what extent do agricultural policies of rich countries influence the right to food in poorer countries? How do decisions to screen asylum seekers outside state borders affect refugee rights? How does cooperation among different states in the "war on terror" influence individuals' rights to be free from torture? This volume presents a brief for a more complex and updated approach to the protection of human rights worldwide.

Against Obligation
Against Obligation

Author: Abner S. Greene

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-04-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780674064416

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Do citizens of a nation such as the United States have a moral duty to obey the law? Do officials, when interpreting the Constitution, have an obligation to follow what that text meant when ratified? To follow precedent? To follow what the Supreme Court today says the Constitution means? These are questions of political obligation (for citizens) and interpretive obligation (for anyone interpreting the Constitution, often officials). Abner Greene argues that such obligations do not exist. Although citizens should obey some laws entirely, and other laws in some instances, no one has put forth a successful argument that citizens should obey all laws all the time. Greene’s case is not only “against” obligation. It is also “for” an approach he calls “permeable sovereignty”: all of our norms are on equal footing with the state’s laws. Accordingly, the state should accommodate religious, philosophical, family, or tribal norms whenever possible. Greene shows that questions of interpretive obligation share many qualities with those of political obligation. In rejecting the view that constitutional interpreters must follow either prior or higher sources of constitutional meaning, Greene confronts and turns aside arguments similar to those offered for a moral duty of citizens to obey the law.

Due Diligence Obligations in International Human Rights Law
Due Diligence Obligations in International Human Rights Law

Author: Maria Monnheimer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-02-18

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1108899307

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With the importance of non-State actors ever increasing, the traditional State-centric approach of international law is being put to the test. In particular, significant accountability lacunae have emerged in the field of human rights protection. To address these challenges, this book makes a case for extraterritorial due diligence obligations of States in international human rights law. It traces back how due diligence obligations evolved on the international plane and develops a general analytical framework making the broad and vague notion of due diligence more approachable. The framework is applied to different fields of international law which provides guidance on how due diligence obligations can be better conceptualized. Drawing inspiration from these developments, the book analyses how extraterritorial human rights due diligence obligations could operate in practice and foster global human rights protection.