This book argues that equal recognition before the law is the key to achieving social equality for marginalised groups. It examines how the law denies equal recognition to members of marginalised groups through denials of their legal personhood and legal agency and how we can use human rights law to address these wrongs.
Legal personhood is required for voting, marrying, inheriting, contracting, consenting, and other critical social acts that can be predicates to power and privilege. The Right to Legal Personhood of Marginalised Groups addresses personhood and legal capacity as human rights issues, in particular as they relate to disabled people, migrant groups, indigenous peoples, racial minorities, women, and gender minorities. The concepts of personhood, legal capacity, and agency have conflicting definitions in the literature, and there is a lack of clarity regarding their application. Dr. Anna Arstein-Kerslake brings her expertise as a renowned thinker in the areas of human rights, disability rights, gender justice, and legal personhood to this discussion. She provides clarity on personhood and legal capacity by developing definitions of these concepts based on the articulation of the right to legal capacity in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She then applies these definitions to the situations of various minority groups. The Right to Legal Personhood of Marginalised Groups has the potential to significantly enrich the understanding of how and why marginalised groups are denied equality. It goes beyond the traditional analysis of discrimination and equal protection of the law and explores a new social justice imperative: equal recognition before the law.
"Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice is a comparative study of the imperatives and constraints of access for a number of marginalized communities. A central feature of the rule of law is the equality of all before the law. As an aspect of this equality, all persons have the right to the protection of their rights by the state, particularly the judiciary. These studies - by internationally renowned scholars and practitioners - examine the role of courts and similar bodies in administering the laws that relate to the entitlements of marginalized communities, and address individuals' and organisations' access to institutions of justice: primarily, but not exclusively, courts. They raise broad questions about the commitment of the state to law and human rights as the principal framework for policy and executive authority, as well as the impetus to law reform through litigation. Offering insights into the difficulties of enforcing, and indeed into issues of the will to enforce, the law this book thus explores fundamental questions about the value of engagement with the formal legal system for marginalized communities." --Book Jacket.
This book explores the role of gender in the recognition of an individual’s legal capacity. It discusses the meaning of the right to legal capacity and its two core elements – legal personhood and legal agency. It then analyses historical and modern denials of personhood and agency experienced by women, disabled women, and gender minorities – for example, prohibitions from voting, limitations on contracting, loss of personhood upon marriage, and gender binary requirements leading to an inability to exercise legal capacity, among others. Using critical feminist, disability, and queer theory, this book also offers insights into the construction of legal personhood and its role as a predictor of power and privilege. The book identifies patterns of oppression through legal capacity denial in various jurisdictions and discusses situations in which modern law continues to enforce these denials. In addition, the book presents solutions: it identifies practices to learn from in various jurisdictions around the world – including both civil law and common law jurisdictions. It also uses case studies to illustrate the ways in which existing laws, policies and practices could be reformed. As such, the book offers both a novel contribution to the field of legal capacity law and a tool for creating change and helping to realise the right to legal capacity for all.
This volume contains the proceedings of the Social Ontology, Normativity, and Philosophy of Law conference, which took place on May 30–31, 2019 at the University of Glasgow. At the invitation of the Social Ontology Research Group, a panel of prominent scholars shed light on normativity from the perspective of social ontology and the philosophy of law.
This edited collection is the result of the Voices of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-determination (VOICES) based at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, National University of Ireland Galway. Focusing on the exercise of legal capacity under Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the stories of people with disabilities are combined with responses from scholars, activists and practitioners, addressing four key areas: criminal responsibility, contracts, consent to sex, and consent to medical treatment. Sustainable law and policy reforms are set out based on the storytellers’ experiences, promoting a recognition of legal capacity and supported decision-making. The perspectives are from across a wide range of disciplines (including law, sociology, nursing, and history) and 13 countries. The volume is a valuable resource for researchers, academics and legislators, judges or policy makers in the area of legal capacity and disability. It is envisaged that the book will be particularly useful for those engaged in legal capacity law reform processes worldwide and that this grounded work will be of great interest to legislators and policy makers who must frame new laws on supported decision making in compliance with the UNCRPD.
This book provides a thorough review of multinational human rights litigation in various countries where such litigation has been pursued, predominantly on behalf of victims in the Global South. It covers cases relating to environmental damage, occupational disease, human rights abuses involving complicity with state security, and in the context of supply chains. The volume is edited by Richard Meeran, who pioneered the first series of tort-based multinational parent company cases in the 1990s and whose firm, Leigh Day, has been at the forefront of this area for almost 30 years. Contributions come from highly experienced legal practitioners in the countries in question who have run many of the key ground-breaking cases, and who understand the opportunities and hurdles that arise in practice. They provide their perspectives and insights into the features of the relevant laws, procedures, and practical considerations in their respective legal systems. Chapters address the potential legal remedies that are available; the legal, procedural, and practical obstacles to justice including funding; as well as strategic issues. This developing area of corporate legal accountability has increasingly become an integral part of the field of business and human rights, which has grown significantly in recent decades. This collection is an essential guide to the field.
While many have explored the law surrounding the rights of indigenous peoples through an examination of all relevant instruments and institutions, this book is based on the premise that one can obtain an in depth knowledge of the indigenous rights regime by simply knowing the answer to two questions: What is meant by 'peoples' and 'equality' under international law? From Terra Nullius to International Legal Subjects and Possessors of Land - Indigenous Peoples' Status in the International Legal System offers a new and profound insight into the international indigenous rights discourse. This volume articulates that the understanding of 'peoples' is paramount to the question of whether indigenous peoples are beneficiaries of the right to self-determination, and, if so, what should be the content and scope of this right. The book additionally explores the contemporary meaning of 'equality', arguing that the understanding of equality fundamentally impacts what rights indigenous peoples possess over territories and natural resources. This book outlines the rights of greatest relevance to indigenous peoples, communities, and individuals, and explains the justification for indigenous rights.
This edited work collates novel contributions on contemporary topics that are related to human rights. The essays address analytic-descriptive questions, such as what legal personality actually means, and normative questions, such as who or what should be recognised as a legal person. As is well-known among jurists, the law has a special conception of personhood: corporations are persons, whereas slaves have traditionally been considered property rather than persons. This odd state of affairs has not garnered the interest of legal theorists for a while and the theory of legal personhood has been a relatively peripheral topic in jurisprudence for at least 50 years. As readers will see, there have recently been many developments and debates that justify a theoretical investigation of this topic. Animal rights activists have been demanding that some animals be recognized as legal persons. The field of robotics has prompted questions about driverless cars: should they be granted a limited legal personality, so that the car itself would be responsible for damages? This book explores such concepts and touches on matters of bioethics, animal law and medical law. It includes matters of legal history and appeals to both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those with an interest in theories of law and the philosophy of law.
Estimates indicate that as many as 1 in 4 Americans will experience a mental health problem or will misuse alcohol or drugs in their lifetimes. These disorders are among the most highly stigmatized health conditions in the United States, and they remain barriers to full participation in society in areas as basic as education, housing, and employment. Improving the lives of people with mental health and substance abuse disorders has been a priority in the United States for more than 50 years. The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 is considered a major turning point in America's efforts to improve behavioral healthcare. It ushered in an era of optimism and hope and laid the groundwork for the consumer movement and new models of recovery. The consumer movement gave voice to people with mental and substance use disorders and brought their perspectives and experience into national discussions about mental health. However over the same 50-year period, positive change in American public attitudes and beliefs about mental and substance use disorders has lagged behind these advances. Stigma is a complex social phenomenon based on a relationship between an attribute and a stereotype that assigns undesirable labels, qualities, and behaviors to a person with that attribute. Labeled individuals are then socially devalued, which leads to inequality and discrimination. This report contributes to national efforts to understand and change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that can lead to stigma and discrimination. Changing stigma in a lasting way will require coordinated efforts, which are based on the best possible evidence, supported at the national level with multiyear funding, and planned and implemented by an effective coalition of representative stakeholders. Ending Discrimination Against People with Mental and Substance Use Disorders: The Evidence for Stigma Change explores stigma and discrimination faced by individuals with mental or substance use disorders and recommends effective strategies for reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek treatment and other supportive services. It offers a set of conclusions and recommendations about successful stigma change strategies and the research needed to inform and evaluate these efforts in the United States.
