This volume examines the role and influence of multiculturalism in general theories of international law; in the composition and functioning of international organizations such as the ICJ, the ILC, the UN, and the ICC; and in the progressive development of substantive international law regarding issues such as anti-terrorism, cultural identity, the Danish cartoons controversy, indigenous peoples, and cultural exemptions at the WTO. With Forewords from Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Shigeru Oda, this authoritative volume contains contributions from 36 distinguished scholars from every continent of the world tackling multiculturalism and international law an ever more topical issue in honour of, appropriately, Edward McWhinney, an eminent scholar who has spent a substantial part of his life promoting multiculturalism.
Challenging questions arise in the effort to adequately protect the cultural rights of individuals and communities worldwide, not the least of which are questions concerning the very understanding of ‘culture’. In Cultural Rights in International Law and Discourse: Contemporary Challenges and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Pok Yin S. Chow offers an account of the present-day challenges to the articulation and implementation of cultural rights in international law. Through examining how ‘culture’ is conceptualised in different stages of contemporary anthropology, the book explores how these understandings of ‘culture’ enable us to more accurately put issues of cultural rights into perspective. The book attempts to provide analytical exits to existing conundrums and dilemmas concerning the protections of culture, cultural heritage and cultural identity.
This collection of essays pays homage to the multifarious and enduring work of Kalliopi K. Koufa, the first woman to become Professor of International Law in Greece. The volume brings together 37 contributions of renowned international law scholars from all over the world on a wide spectrum of important contemporary theoretical and practical issues. The essays reflect the multiple faces, the expanding scope and diversity of contemporary international law. Areas covered include the use of force, dispute settlement, international criminal law, international environmental law and, most notably, terrorism and human rights, areas on which the work of Professor Koufa in the United Nations and elsewhere has been particularly influential.
Examining the unique cultures of the Islamic Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Indianized Asia, and China, Adda Bozeman attacks the supposition that world unity can be achieved through the application of Western ideals of international law and organization. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
International human rights law was originally focused on universal individual rights. This book examines the developments which have seen it change to a multi-cultural approach, one more sensitive to the cultures of the people directly affected by them. It argues that this can provide benefits, but that aspects of universalism must be retained.
Bringing together academics and private international lawyers from a wide range of jurisdictions and institutions, this volume explores how private international law can best contribute to the development of the global legal architecture needed to integrate our emerging multicultural world society.
Both interculturalism and multiculturalism address the question of how states should forge unity from ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. But what are the dividing lines between interculturalism and multiculturalism? This volume brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the field to address these two different approaches. With a Foreword by Charles Taylor and an Afterword by Bhikhu Parekh, this collection spans European, North-American and Latin-American debates.
We are currently witnessing the global diffusion of multiculturalism, both as a political discourse and as a set of international legal norms. States today are under increasing international scrutiny regarding their treatment of ethnocultural groups, and are expected to meet evolving international standards regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, national minorities, and immigrants. This phenomenon represents a veritable revolution in international relations, yet has received little public or scholarly attention. In this book, Kymlicka examines the factors underlying this change, and the challenges it raises. Against those critics who argue that multiculturalism is a threat to universal human rights, Kymlicka shows that the sort of multiculturalism that is being globalized is inspired and constrained by the human rights revolution, and embedded in a framework of liberal-democratic values. However, the formulation and implementation of these international norms has generated a number of dilemmas. The policies adopted by international organizations to deal with ethnic diversity are driven by conflicting impulses. Pessimism about the destabilizing consequences of ethnic politics alternates with optimism about the prospects for a peaceful and democratic form of multicultural politics. The result is often an unstable mix of paralyzing fear and naïve hope, rooted in conflicting imperatives of security and justice. Moreover, given the enormous differences in the characteristics of minorities (eg., their size, territorial concentration, cultural markers, historic relationship to the state), it is difficult to formulate standards that apply to all groups. Yet attempts to formulate more targeted norms that apply only to specific categories of minorities (eg., "indigenous peoples" or "national minorities") have proven controversial and unstable. Kymlicka examines these dilemmas as they have played out in both the theory and practice of international minority rights protection, including recent developments regarding the rights of national minorities in Europe, the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, as well as emerging debates on multiculturalism in Asia and Africa.
As individuals travel across borders, societies have become more and more pluralistic. The result of increased migration is the interaction among cultural communities and inevitably clashes between state law and customary law. These cultural conflicts have given rise to a new multicultural jurisprudence. In this volume scholars grapple with the immense challenges judges are currently experiencing everywhere. To what extent can and should courts accommodate litigants' requests by taking their cultural backgrounds into account? This collection brings together powerful examples of the cultural defense in many countries in Western Europe, North America, and elsewhere. It shows the ubiquity of this defense, contrary to the mistaken impression that it has been invoked principally in the United States. This book makes the case for undertaking studies of the use of the cultural defense in jurisdictions all over the world where this has not been previously documented. Many of the chapters concentrate on criminal cases including homicide in the context of honour crimes, provocation based on 'loss of face' or witchcraft killings. Some deal with other areas of law such as asylum jurisprudence, family law and housing policy. They show in concrete cases how cultural claims have arisen and how legal systems wrestle with these arguments. It is clear that judges have had considerable difficulty handling many of the cultural claims. The authors demonstrate persuasively the need to reconsider the proper use of cultural evidence in legal proceedings. Those interested in the ways in which expertise influences the disposition of cases will find this book compelling.
