Making Rights Real
Making Rights Real

Author: Charles R. Epp

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-02-15

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0226211665

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It’s a common complaint: the United States is overrun by rules and procedures that shackle professional judgment, have no valid purpose, and serve only to appease courts and lawyers. Charles R. Epp argues, however, that few Americans would want to return to an era without these legalistic policies, which in the 1970s helped bring recalcitrant bureaucracies into line with a growing national commitment to civil rights and individual dignity. Focusing on three disparate policy areas—workplace sexual harassment, playground safety, and police brutality in both the United States and the United Kingdom—Epp explains how activists and professionals used legal liability, lawsuit-generated publicity, and innovative managerial ideas to pursue the implementation of new rights. Together, these strategies resulted in frameworks designed to make institutions accountable through intricate rules, employee training, and managerial oversight. Explaining how these practices became ubiquitous across bureaucratic organizations, Epp casts today’s legalistic state in an entirely new light.

Making Rights Real
Making Rights Real

Author: Ian Leigh

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2008-08-29

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1847314511

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Ten years after the passing 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'.

Making Human Rights Real
Making Human Rights Real

Author: Filip Spagnoli

Publisher: Algora Publishing

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0875865704

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Here in a nutshell readers may find a description of the most important characteristics of human rights, and a clear and concise discussion of the problem of making human rights real and not just hypothetical. Building on definitions of human rights used by the United Nations and other international bodies, the author describes the main characteristics of the system of human rights (universality, interdependence, differences between types of rights, absolute or limited rights, the subjects of rights - individuals or groups, the link between rights and the judicial system and between rights and democracy). He then discusses some of the instruments we can use to promote respect for human rights, the means by which we might make these rights real for a greater portion of humanity. Along the way, he analyzes some of the related controversies regarding sovereignty, international intervention, and globalization and questions of cultural imperialism as they bear upon human rights. Do we have a right to impose rights - or to defend ourselves from such intervention? This systematic discussion presents a complex and difficult topic in an understandable framework accessible to the general public, and will stand as a useful foundation for readings of more specialized scientific, legal and philosophical works. Where most human rights books for the nonspecialist focus on specific instances of rights abuses, this work provides a more general approach focused on the logic in the system of human rights. * Filip Spagnoli obtained his PhD at the University of Brussels. He has written numerous OpEd articles in leading Belgian newspapers and specialized articles in philosophical periodicals, and two books, Homo Democraticus, On the Universal Desirability but the Not So Universal Possibility of Democracy and Human Rights (2003); and Democratic Imperialism, A Practical Guide, 2004). Employed by the research and statistics directorate of the Belgian Central Bank, Spagnoli is a guest speaker at conferences and universities and has participated in European Commission study visits to Eastern European countries with the aim of delivering statistical expertise and helping these countries to achieve membership of the European Union.

Making Immigrant Rights Real
Making Immigrant Rights Real

Author: Els de Graauw

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2016-04-05

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 150170348X

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More than half of the 41 million foreign-born individuals in the United States today are noncitizens, half have difficulty with English, a quarter are undocumented, and many are poor. As a result, most immigrants have few opportunities to make their voices heard in the political process. Nonprofits in many cities have stepped into this gap to promote the integration of disadvantaged immigrants. They have done so despite notable constraints on their political activities, including limits on their lobbying and partisan electioneering, limited organizational resources, and dependence on government funding. Immigrant rights advocates also operate in a national context focused on immigration enforcement rather than immigrant integration. In Making Immigrant Rights Real, Els de Graauw examines how immigrant-serving nonprofits can make impressive policy gains despite these limitations.Drawing on three case studies of immigrant rights policies—language access, labor rights, and municipal ID cards—in San Francisco, de Graauw develops a tripartite model of advocacy strategies that nonprofits have used to propose, enact, and implement immigrant-friendly policies: administrative advocacy, cross-sectoral and cross-organizational collaborations, and strategic issue framing. The inventive development and deployment of these strategies enabled immigrant-serving nonprofits in San Francisco to secure some remarkable new immigrant rights victories, and de Graauw explores how other cities can learn from their experiences.

Making Equal Rights Real
Making Equal Rights Real

Author: Jody Heymann

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-02-27

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 1107378311

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Making Equal Rights Real brings together leaders from around the world who have been working effectively to increase equal economic and social rights, ranging from rights in the workplace to property ownership and education. The contributors tell the detailed stories of effective approaches to implementing equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities in North America, women in Africa, children in the Middle East and sexual minorities in Asia. They also describe approaches taken around the world to increase equal rights for people living in poverty, for those living with disabilities and for all people seeking the information they need to hold their government accountable for implementing everyone's rights. The book addresses what can be done by policymakers, civil society, non-governmental organizations, lawyers seeking to implement equal rights legislation and advocates working in the community, as well as those developing constitutions and negotiating international agreements.

Making Immigrant Rights Real
Making Immigrant Rights Real

Author: Els de Graauw

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2016-03-03

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1501700197

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More than half of the 41 million foreign-born individuals in the United States today are noncitizens, half have difficulty with English, a quarter are undocumented, and many are poor. As a result, most immigrants have few opportunities to make their voices heard in the political process. Nonprofits in many cities have stepped into this gap to promote the integration of disadvantaged immigrants. They have done so despite notable constraints on their political activities, including limits on their lobbying and partisan electioneering, limited organizational resources, and dependence on government funding. Immigrant rights advocates also operate in a national context focused on immigration enforcement rather than immigrant integration. In Making Immigrant Rights Real, Els de Graauw examines how immigrant-serving nonprofits can make impressive policy gains despite these limitations. Drawing on three case studies of immigrant rights policies—language access, labor rights, and municipal ID cards—in San Francisco, de Graauw develops a tripartite model of advocacy strategies that nonprofits have used to propose, enact, and implement immigrant-friendly policies: administrative advocacy, cross-sectoral and cross-organizational collaborations, and strategic issue framing. The inventive development and deployment of these strategies enabled immigrant-serving nonprofits in San Francisco to secure some remarkable new immigrant rights victories, and de Graauw explores how other cities can learn from their experiences.

Rights on Trial
Rights on Trial

Author: Ellen Berrey

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-06-22

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 022646685X

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Gerry Handley faced years of blatant race-based harassment before he filed a complaint against his employer: racist jokes, signs reading “KKK” in his work area, and even questions from coworkers as to whether he had sex with his daughter as slaves supposedly did. He had an unusually strong case, with copious documentation and coworkers’ support, and he settled for $50,000, even winning back his job. But victory came at a high cost. Legal fees cut into Mr. Handley’s winnings, and tensions surrounding the lawsuit poisoned the workplace. A year later, he lost his job due to downsizing by his company. Mr. Handley exemplifies the burden plaintiffs bear in contemporary civil rights litigation. In the decades since the civil rights movement, we’ve made progress, but not nearly as much as it might seem. On the surface, America’s commitment to equal opportunity in the workplace has never been clearer. Virtually every company has antidiscrimination policies in place, and there are laws designed to protect these rights across a range of marginalized groups. But, as Ellen Berrey, Robert L. Nelson, and Laura Beth Nielsen compellingly show, this progressive vision of the law falls far short in practice. When aggrieved individuals turn to the law, the adversarial character of litigation imposes considerable personal and financial costs that make plaintiffs feel like they’ve lost regardless of the outcome of the case. Employer defendants also are dissatisfied with the system, often feeling “held up” by what they see as frivolous cases. And even when the case is resolved in the plaintiff’s favor, the conditions that gave rise to the lawsuit rarely change. In fact, the contemporary approach to workplace discrimination law perversely comes to reinforce the very hierarchies that antidiscrimination laws were created to redress. Based on rich interviews with plaintiffs, attorneys, and representatives of defendants and an original national dataset on case outcomes, Rights on Trial reveals the fundamental flaws of workplace discrimination law and offers practical recommendations for how we might better respond to persistent patterns of discrimination.

Redefining Human Rights in the Struggle for Peace and Development
Redefining Human Rights in the Struggle for Peace and Development

Author: Terrence E. Paupp

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-01-20

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 1107783127

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Human rights in peace and development are accepted throughout the Global South as established, normative, and beyond debate. Only in the powerful elite sectors of the Global North have these rights been resisted and refuted. The policies and interests of these global forces are antithetical to advancing human rights, ending global poverty, and respecting the sovereign integrity of States and governments throughout the Global South. The link between poverty, war, and environmental degradation has become evident over the last 60 years, further augmenting international consciousness of these issues as interconnected with the rest of the human rights corpus. This book examines the history of this struggle and outlines practical means to implement these rights through a global framework of constitutional protections. Within this emerging framework, it argues that States will be increasingly obligated to formulate policies and programs to achieve peace and development throughout the global society.

Making Equality Rights Real
Making Equality Rights Real

Author: Fay Faraday

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 9781552211182

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Equality is a hotly contested Charter right and a bedrock Canadian value. This book assesses equality jurisprudence from many angles. Each of the 13 papers in this collection aims to deepen our understanding of the dynamics of inequality and oppression, thereby enriching the legal framework for eradicating and promoting substantive equality.

Making Make-Believe Real
Making Make-Believe Real

Author: Garry Wills

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2014-06-10

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0300197535

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Shakespeare’s plays abound with kings and leaders who crave a public stage and seize every opportunity to make their lives a performance: Antony, Cleopatra, Richard III, Othello, and many others. Such self-dramatizing characters appear in the work of other playwrights of the era as well, Marlowe’s Edward II and Tamburlaine among them. But Elizabethan playwrights were not alone in realizing that a sense of theater was essential to the exercise of power. Real rulers knew it, too, and none better than Queen Elizabeth. In this fascinating study of political stagecraft in the Elizabethan era, Garry Wills explores a period of vast cultural and political change during which the power of make-believe to make power real was not just a theory but an essential truth. Wills examines English culture as Catholic Christianity’s rituals were being overturned and a Protestant queen took the throne. New iconographies of power were necessary for the new Renaissance liturgy to displace the medieval church-state. The author illuminates the extensive imaginative constructions that went into Elizabeth’s reign and the explosion of great Tudor and Stuart drama that provided the imaginative power to support her long and successful rule.