Abstract
Witte J, The Blessings of Liberty : Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge University Press 2021)
Leading legal scholar John Witte, Jr. explores the role religion played in the development of rights in the Western legal tradition and traces the complex interplay between human rights and religious freedom norms in modern domestic and international law. He examines how US courts are moving towards greater religious freedom, while recent decisions of the pan-European courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg have harmed new religious minorities and threatened old religious traditions in Europe. Witte argues that the robust promotion and protection of religious freedom is the best way to protect many other fundamental rights today, even though religious freedom and other fundamental rights sometimes clash and need judicious balancing. He also responds to various modern critics who see human rights as a betrayal of Christianity and religious freedom as a betrayal of human rights.
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Andrew J and Bernard F, Human Rights Responsibilities in the Digital Age : States, Companies, and Individuals (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
This book examines the tangled responsibilities of states, companies, and individuals surrounding human rights in the digital age. Digital technologies have a huge impact – for better and worse – on human lives; while they can clearly enhance some human rights, they also facilitate a wide range of violations.
States are expected to implement efficient measures against powerful private companies, but, at the same time, they are drawn to technologies that extend their own control over citizens. Tech companies are increasingly asked to prevent violations committed online by their users, yet many of their business models depend on the accumulation and exploitation of users’ personal data. While civil society has a crucial part to play in upholding human rights, it is also the case that individuals harm other individuals online. All three stakeholders need to ensure that technology does not provoke the disintegration of human rights.
Bringing together experts from a range of disciplines, including law, international relations, and journalism, this book provides a detailed analysis of the impact of digital technologies on human rights, which will be of interest to academics, research students and professionals concerned by this issue.
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Curzi LC, General Principles for Business and Human Rights in International Law (Brill Nijhoff, 2020)
In ‘General Principles for Business and Human Rights in International Law’ Ludovica Chiussi Curzi offers an overview of the relevance of general principles of law in the multifaceted discourse on business and human rights. What are the implications of the state duty to protect human rights in good faith and to guarantee victims of corporate human rights violations access to justice? Can general principles of law, such as abuse of rights, due diligence, and estoppel provide a source of obligations for companies that is relevant to human rights protection? Has an autonomous principle on corporate liability developed in international law? These are the questions at the core of this monograph, which seeks the answers in the normative foundations of public international law.
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Dzehtsiaro K, Can the European Court of Human Rights shape European Public Order? (Cambridge University Press.,2021)
In this book, Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou argues that, from the legal perspective, the formula ‘European public order’ is excessively vague and does not have an identifiable meaning; therefore, it should not be used by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in its reasoning. However, European public order can also be understood as an analytical concept which does not require a clearly defined content. In this sense, the ECtHR can impact European public order but cannot strategically shape it. The Court's impact is a by-product of individual cases which create a feedback loop with the contracting states. European public order is influenced as a result of interaction between the Court and the contracting parties. This book uses a wide range of sources and evidence to substantiate its core arguments: from a comprehensive analysis of the Court's case law to research interviews with the judges of the ECtHR.
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Grote R, Morales Antoniazzi M and Paris D, Research Handbook on Compliance in International Human Rights Law (Edward Elgar, 2021)
This comprehensive Research Handbook offers an in-depth examination of the most significant factors affecting compliance with international human rights law, which has emerged as one of the key problems in the efforts to promote effective protection of human rights. In particular, it examines the relationships between regional human rights courts and domestic actors and judiciaries.
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Heri C, Responsive Human Rights : Vulnerability, Ill-Treatment and the ECtHR (Hart Publishing 2021)
Who is a vulnerable person in human rights law? The question, much examined in international law, is surprisingly under explored in European human rights law. This important new work remedies that by assessing the treatment of vulnerability by the European Court of Human Rights. It explores legal-philosophical understandings of the topic, providing a theoretical foundation to the question. Not confining itself to the abstract, however, it provides a bridge from the theoretical to the practical by undertaking a comprehensive examination of the Court's approach under art. 3. It pays particular attention to its understanding of human dignity. Well written and compellingly argued, this is an important new book for all scholars of European human rights.
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Hohmann J and Goldblatt B, The Right to the Continuous Improvement of Living Conditions Responding to Complex Global Challenges (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021)
What does the right to the continuous improvement of living conditions in Article 11(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights really mean and how can it contribute to social change? The book explores how this underdeveloped right can have valuable application in response to global problems of poverty, inequality and climate destruction, through an in-depth consideration of its meaning.
The book seeks to interpret and give meaning to the right as a legal standard, giving it practical value for those whose living conditions are inadequate. It locates the right within broader philosophical and political debates, whilst also assessing the challenges to its realisation. It also explores how the right relates to human rights more generally and considers its application to issues of gender, care and the rights of Indigenous peoples. The contributors deeply probe the meaning of ‘living conditions’, suggesting that these encompass more than the basic rights to housing, water, food, and clothing. The chapters provide a range of doctrinal, historical and philosophical engagements through grounded analysis and imaginative interpretation.
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KIRSTEN. L DAVID ROBERT LYER, National Human Rights Institutions: Rules, Requirements, and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2021)
National Human Rights Institutions: Rules, Requirements, and Practice is an authoritative guide to National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) in their important role as promoters and protectors of human rights at the national level. This book serves as both the first ever ‘casebook’ on the findings of the SCA, as well as a comprehensive reference for the requirements for compliance of NHRIs with the Paris Principles, and is a vital source of information on the actual practice of NHRIs.
Since its earliest assessments of NHRIs in 1998, the Global Alliance of NHRIs’ (GANHRI) Sub-Committee on Accreditation (SCA) has developed a substantive body of work that has examined the operation and practice of over 128 institutions in countries and territories from every part of the globe.
Analysed and catalogued in their entirety into an accessible format for the first time, and covering all aspects of NHRIs’ structure and functioning, as well as providing a thorough overview of how the SCA works in practice, this book is an indispensable resource for scholars and practitioners who wish to understand and learn how NHRIs operate at the national level, as well as what problems they face and ultimately, how they can be strengthened.
Benefitting from the unique insight of David Langtry, a member of the SCA for 11 years, this book is an essential source for all those interested in the role of NHRIs, and more broadly, of all state-established institutions intended to function independently.
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Lépinard E and Rubio-Marín R, Transforming Gender Citizenship : The Irresistible Rise of Gender Quotas in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Gender quotas are a controversial policy measure. However, over the past twenty years they have been widely adopted around the world and especially in Europe. They are now used in politics, corporate boards, state and local public administration and even in civil society organizations. This book explores this unprecedented phenomenon, providing a unique comparative perspective on gender quotas’ adoption across thirteen European countries. It also studies resistance to gender quotas by political parties and supreme courts. Providing up-to-date comprehensive data on gender quotas regulations, Transforming Gender Citizenship proposes a typology of countries, from those which have embraced gender quotas as a new way to promote gender equality in all spheres of social life, to those who have consistently refused gender quotas as a tool for gender equality. Reflecting on divergences and commonalities across Europe, the authors analyze how gender quotas may transform dominant conception of citizenship and gender equality.
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MacNaughton G, Frey DF and Porter C, Human Rights and Economic Inequalities (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Chapter 1 Introduction Gillian MacNaughton, Diane F. Frey and Catherine Porter I. Introduction Economic inequalities are among the greatest human rights challenges the world faces today. Over the past four decades of neoliberal policy dominance, economic inequalities have risen drastically in the vast majority of countries in the world (Alvaredo et al. 2018, 9). Over the same period, international human rights have risen to the become the primary ethical language and legal framework for justice. This Upendra Baxi labels the “Age of Human Rights” (2012, 1). For the first 30 years after adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, the human rights agenda encompassed the ideal of equality, which coincided with the growing welfare state and the decolonization and “modernization” of low- and middle-income countries (Marshall 1950; Moyn 2018; Dehm 2019). Since the 1980s, however, the hegemonic rise of neoliberal ideology and policy has resulted in growing and now extreme economic inequalities (Harvey 2005). This trend is now widely acknowledged by scholars, policymakers and activists
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Naʻīm ʻAbd Allāh Aḥmad 1946-, Decolonizing Human Rights (Cambridge University Press 2021)
The premise of this book is that, like everything else in life and human experience since the beginning of time, evolution is the key for understanding how the world works. For me as a Muslim only God is the permanent reality, while everything else evolves with time and in response to changing circumstances. Since human rights are rendered in the service of human beings, they must evolve with the life experience of their subject, namely, human beings on the ground everywhere, for each person and community on their own terms. If that is not the concept of human rights for the people in question, with its content emerging out of their human experience in its context. By the principle of the concept itself, no other person, group or entity can impose his or their view in defining, interpreting or elaborating human rights norms and institutions for others. The way remains open for respectful debate and contestation, suggestions and recommendation, but never in violation of the human dignity and freedom of the human subject. This is what we all know as the Golden Rule, or the principle of reciprocity. If in doubt as to whether a debate or challenge is in violation of this fundamental principle, imagine the situation with you as the subject of violation of human dignity and freedom
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Porsdam H and Mann SP, The Right to Science : Then and Now (Cambridge University Press 2021)
That everyone has a human right to enjoy the benefits of the progress of science and its applications comes as a surprise to many. Nevertheless, this right is pertinent to numerous issues at the intersection of science and society: open access; “dual use” science; access to ownership and dissemination of data, knowledge, methods and the affordances and applications thereof; as well as the role of international cooperation, human dignity and other human rights in relation to science and its products. As we advance towards superintelligence, quantum computing, drone swarms and life-extension technology, serious policy decisions will be made at the national and international levels. The human right to science provides an ideal tool to do so, backed up as it is by international law, political heft and normative weight. This book is the first sustained attempt at turning this wonder of foresight into an actionable and justiciable right.
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Bhuta, N and others, Struggle for Human Right : Essays in Honour of Philip Alston (Oxford University Press, 2021)
The Struggle for Human Rights evaluates the themes of law, politics, and practice which together define international human rights practice and scholarship. Taking as it's inspiration the 40 year career of international human rights advocate Philip Alston, this book of essays examines foundational debates central to the evolution of the human rights project. It critiques the reform of human rights institutions and reflects on the place of human rights practice in contemporary society.
Bringing together leading scholars, practitioners, and critics of human rights from a variety of disciplines, The Struggle for Human Rights addresses the most urgent questions posed within the field of human rights today – its practice and its theory. Rethinking assumptions and re-evaluating strategies in the law, politics, and practice of international human rights, this book is essential reading for academics and human rights professionals around the world.