Abstract
Citizenship: past, present and future perspectives. / Michelle Flores. – Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2017. ISBN: 1-5361-0760-3
This book reviews research on the past, present and future of citizenship. Chapter One provides an empirical exploration of citizenship acquisition by region and nation. Chapter Two focuses on citizenship, migration and national sovereignty in Europe. Chapter Three examines innovative educational programs and practices to successfully implement the right to education and integrate culturally-diverse students. Chapter Four analyzes civic identity profiling in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The Conservative Human Rights Revolution: European Identity, Transnational Politics, and the Origins of the European Convention / Marco Duranti. – Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 0-19-981138-5
The Conservative Human Rights Revolution radically reinterprets the origins of the European human rights system, arguing that its conservative inventors envisioned the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) not only as an instrument to contain communism and fascism in continental Europe, but also to allow them to pursue a controversial political agenda at home and abroad. Just as the Supreme Court of the United States had sought to overturn Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, a European Court of Human Rights was meant to constrain the ability of democratically elected governments to implement left-wing policies that conservatives believed violated their basic liberties, above all in Britain and France.Human rights were also evoked in the service of reviving a romantic Christian vision of European identity, one that contrasted sharply with the modernizing projects of technocrats such as Jean Monnet. Rather than follow the model of the United Nations, conservatives such as Winston Churchill grounded their appeals for new human rights safeguards in an older understanding of European civilization. All told, these efforts served as a basis for reconciliation between Germany and the rest of Europe, while justifying the exclusion of communists and colonized peoples from the ambit of European human rights law.
Marco Duranti illuminates the history of internationalism and international law – from the peace conferences and world’s fairs of the early twentieth century to the grand pan-European congresses of the postwar period – and elucidates Churchill’s Europeanism, as well as his critical contribution to the genesis of the ECHR. Drawing on previously unpublished material from twenty archives in six countries, The Conservative Human Rights Revolution revisits the ethical foundations of European integration after WWII and offers a new perspective on the crisis in which the European Union finds itself today.
Defending human dignity: the role of the human rights activist and the scholar / Fons Coomans. – Intersentia 2016. ISBN: 1-78068-444-4
This booklet contains the texts of the Theo van Boven Lectures held in 2014 and 2015. They deal with the subject of defending human dignity by looking at the different roles the human rights defender, the scholar and the human rights NGO can play in achieving this goal. Hina Jilani looks at the opportunities and limitations of human rights defenders in their fight to stand up for the protection of human dignity. Jean Allain discusses the role of the legal scholar in studying contemporary forms of slavery. Finally Aidan McQuade denounces practices of slavery from the perspective of a human rights NGO.
Equal Opportunity Peacekeeping / Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley. – Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 0-19-060242-2
Recent developments such as Sweden’s’ Feminist Foreign Policy, the “Hillary Doctrine,” and the integration of women into combat roles in the U.S. have propelled gender equality to the forefront of international politics. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, however, has been integrating gender equality into peacekeeping missions for nearly two decades as part of the women, peace and security agenda that has been most clearly articulated in UNSC Resolution 1325. To what extent have peacekeeping operations achieved gender equality in peacekeeping operations and been vehicles for promoting gender equality in post-conflict states?
While there have been major improvements related to women’s participation and protection, there is still much left to be desired. Sabrina Karim and Kyle Beardsley argue that gender power imbalances between the sexes and among genders place restrictions on the participation of women in peacekeeping missions. Specifically, discrimination, a relegation of women to safe spaces, and sexual exploitation, abuse, harassment, and violence (SEAHV) continue to threaten progress on gender equality. Using unique cross-national data on sex-disaggregated participation of peacekeepers and on the allegations of SEAHV, as well as original data from the UN Mission in Liberia, the authors examine the origins and consequences of these challenges. Karim and Beardsley also identify and examine how increasing the representation of women in peacekeeping forces, and even more importantly through enhancing a more holistic value for “equal opportunity,” can enable peacekeeping operations to overcome the challenges posed by power imbalances and be more of an example of and vehicle for gender equality globally.
Handbook of Children’s Rights: Global and Multidisciplinary Perspectives / Martin Ruck. – Taylor and Francis, 2017. ISBN: 1-84872-478-0
With contributions from a wide range of international scholars, the Handbook of Children’s Rights brings together research, theory, and practice from diverse perspectives on children’s rights. This volume constitutes a comprehensive treatment of critical perspectives concerning children’s rights in their various forms. Its contributions address some of the major scholarly tensions and policy debates comprising the current discourse on children’s rights, including the best interests of the child, evolving capacities of the child, states’ rights versus children’s rights, rights of children versus parental or family rights, children as citizens, children’s rights versus children’s responsibilities, and balancing protection and participation. In addition to its multidisciplinary focus, the handbook includes perspectives from social science domains in which children’s rights scholarship has evolved largely independently due to distinct and seemingly competing assumptions and disciplinary approaches (e.g., childhood studies, developmental psychology, sociology of childhood, anthropology, and political science). The handbook also brings together diverse methodological approaches to the study of children’s rights, including both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, and policy analysis.
Human Rights after Hitler / Daniel Plesch. – Georgetown University Press, 2017. ISBN: 1-62616-431-2
Human Rights after Hitler reveals thousands of forgotten US and Allied war crimes prosecutions against Hitler and other Axis war criminals based on a popular movement for justice that stretched from Poland to the Pacific. These cases provide a great foundation for twenty-first-century human rights and accompany the achievements of the Nuremberg trials and postwar conventions. They include indictments of perpetrators of the Holocaust made while the death camps were still operating, which confounds the conventional wisdom that there was no official Allied response to the Holocaust at the time. This history also brings long overdue credit to the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), which operated during and after World War II.From the 1940s until a recent lobbying effort by Plesch and colleagues, the UNWCC’s files were kept out of public view in the UN archives under pressure from the US government. The book answers why the commission and its files were closed and reveals that the lost precedents set by these cases have enormous practical utility for prosecuting war crimes today. They cover US and Allied prosecutions of torture, including “water treatment,” wartime sexual assault, and crimes by foot soldiers who were “just following orders.” Plesch’s book will fascinate anyone with an interest in the history of the Second World War as well as provide ground-breaking revelations for historians and human rights practitioners alike. – See more at: http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/human-rights-after-hitler#sthash.kv7tGJwy.dpuf
The International Legal Protection of Persons in Humanitarian Crises: Exploring the Acquis Humanitaire / Dug Cubie. – Hart Publishing Limited, 2017. ISBN: 1-84946-800-1
The instinctual desire to support those in need, irrespective of geographic, cultural or religious links, is both facilitated and overwhelmed by the extent of information now available about the multiple humanitarian crises which occur on a daily basis around the world. Behind the images of devastating floods and earthquakes, or massive forced displacements resulting from armed conflicts, is the all too real suffering faced by individuals and families. From the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami to the on-going conflict in Syria, recent years have seen an increasing debate regarding the international legal mechanisms to protect persons in such humanitarian crises.The International Legal Protection of Persons in Humanitarian Crises argues that an acquis humanitaire is identifiable through the interconnected web of existing and emerging international, regional and national laws, policies and practices for the protection of persons caught up in humanitarian crises. Indeed, the humanitarian imperative to alleviate suffering wherever it may be found permeates various branches of international law, and is reflected in the extensive humanitarian activities undertaken by States and other actors in times of armed conflict, population displacement and disaster. Dug Cubie argues that by clarifying the conceptual framework and normative content of the acquis humanitaire, gaps and lacunae can be identified and the overall protection of persons strengthened. – See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/the-international-legal-protection-of-persons-in-humanitarian-crises-9781509904044/#sthash.2cU1S7CU.dpuf
The international legal status and protection of environmentally-displaced persons: a European perspective / Helene Ragheboom. – Brill 2017. ISBN: 90-04-31741-4
In The International Legal Status and Protection of Environmentally-Displaced Persons: A European Perspective, Hélène Ragheboom addresses the topical issue of displacement caused by environmental factors and analyses in particular whether affected persons, who are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin due to the severe degradation of their living environment, could or, in the negative, should receive some form of international protection within the European Union. The author provides a detailed analysis of relevant instruments of refugee law and international human rights law, and explores possible future approaches to addressing the phenomenon of environmental displacement, ranging from constructive interpretations of existing norms to the allegedly preferable creation of a multidisciplinary sui generis framework.
Liberty Intact / Michael Tugendhat. – Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 0-19-879099-6
What are the connections between conceptions of rights found in English law and those found in bills of rights around the World? How has English Common Law influenced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 1950? These questions and more are answered in Michael Tugendhat’s historical account of human rights from the eighteenth century to present day.
Focusing specifically on the first modern declarations of the rights of mankind- the ‘Virginian Declaration of Rights’, 1776, the French ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’, 1789, and the ‘United States Bill of Rights’, 1791 – the book recognises that the human rights documented in these declarations of the eighteenth century were already enshrined in English common law, many originating from English law and politics of the fifteenth century. The influence of English Common Law, taken largely from Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, can also be realised in the British revolutions of 1642 and 1688; the American and French Revolutions of 1776 and 1789 respectively; and through them, on the UDHR and ECHR. Moreover, Tugendhat argues that British law, in all but a few instances, either meets or exceeds human rights standards, and thus demonstrates that human rights law is British law and not a recent invention imported from abroad.
The Making of International Human Rights / Steven L. B. Jensen. – Cambridge University Press, 2016. ISBN: 1-107-11216-8
This book fundamentally reinterprets the history of international human rights in the post-1945 era by documenting how pivotal the Global South was for their breakthrough. In stark contrast to other contemporary human rights historians who have focused almost exclusively on the 1940s and the 1970s – heavily privileging Western agency – Steven L. B. Jensen convincingly argues that it was in the 1960s that universal human rights had their breakthrough. This is a ground-breaking work that places race and religion at the center of these developments and focuses on a core group of states who led the human rights breakthrough, namely Jamaica, Liberia, Ghana, and the Philippines. They transformed the norms upon which the international community today is built. Their efforts in the 1960s post-colonial moment laid the foundation – in profound and surprising ways – for the so-called human rights revolution in the 1970s, when Western activists and states began to embrace human rights.
Principled Reasoning in Human Rights Adjudication / Se-shauna Wheatle. – Hart Publishing, 2017. ISBN: 1-78225-981-3
Implied constitutional principles form part of the landscape of the development of fundamental rights in common law jurisdictions, affecting issues ranging from the remuneration of judges to the appropriation of property by the state. Principled Reasoning in Human Rights Adjudication offers thematic analysis of the use of the implied constitutional principles of the rule of law and separation of powers in human rights cases. The book examines the functions played by those principles in rights adjudication in Australia, Canada, the Commonwealth Caribbean, and the United Kingdom. It argues that a complete understanding of implied constitutional principles requires thoroughgoing analysis of the sources and methods of implication and of the specific roles played by such principles in the adjudicative process. By disaggregating particular functions and placing those functions within their respective institutional contexts, this book develops an understanding of the features of cases in which implied constitutional principles are invoked and the work done by those principles. – See more at: http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/principled-reasoning-in-human-rights-adjudication-9781782259831/#sthash.YhmVTnCF.dpuf
States, the Law and Access to Refugee Protection / Maria O’Sullivan. – Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. ISBN: 1-5099-0128-0
This timely volume seeks to examine two of the most pertinent current challenges faced by asylum seekers in gaining access to international refugee protection: first, the obstacles to physical access to territory and, second, the barriers to accessing a quality asylum procedure – which the editors have termed ‘access to justice’.To address these aims, the book brings together leading commentators from a range of backgrounds, including law, sociology and political science. It also includes contributions from NGO practitioners. This allows the collection to offer interdisciplinary analysis and to incorporate both theoretical and practical perspectives on questions of immense contemporary significance. While the examination offers a strong focus on European legal and policy developments, the book also addresses the issues in different regions (Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa and Australia). Given the currency of the questions under debate, this book will be essential reading for all scholars in the field of asylum law. – See more at: http://www.bloomsburyprofessional.com/uk/states-the-law-and-access-to-refugee-protection-9781509901296/#sthash.5DFH5lOO.dpuf
Third-Party Interventions before the European Court of Human Rights / Nicole Bürli. – Intersentia 2017. ISBN: 1-78068-461-4
Third-Party Interventions before the European Court of Human Rights is the first comprehensive and empirical study on third-party interventions before an international court. Analysing all cases between 1979 and 2016 to which an intervention was made the book explores their potential influence on the reasoning and decision-making of the Court. It further argues that there are three different type of intervention playing different roles in the administration of justice: amicus curiae interventions by organisations with a virtual interest in the case which strengthen the Court’s legitimacy in its democratic environment; member state interventions reinforcing state sovereignty; and actual third-party interventions by individuals who are involved in the facts of a case and who are protecting their own legal interests. As a consequence, the book makes a plea for applying distinct admissibility criteria to the different type of interventions as well as a more transparent procedure when accepting and denying interventions.
The World’s Stateless:/ Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion. – Wolf Legal Publishers 2017. ISBN: 94-6240-365-1
The disconnect between the recognition of nationality as a fundamental child right and the reality of childhood statelessness presents a massive challenge, but also opens up a wealth of opportunities. Childhood statelessness is entirely preventable. It is never in a child’s best interests to be stateless, nor is it ever a child’s “fault” if they are left without nationality. We are proud to devote this edition of our flagship report, The World’s Stateless 2017, to exploring the urgency of and opportunities for addressing childhood statelessness. Over 50 experts and organisations have contributed material – essays, interviews, photographs and more. Collectively, they deal with a multitude of different dimensions of childhood statelessness, with chapters exploring the right to a nationality, challenges in the context of migration and displacement, the significance of the Sustainable Development Agenda, the mechanics of safeguards against statelessness for children, and litigation, legal assistance and other forms of moblisation as strategies to tackle childhood statelessness. As with every edition of The World’s Stateless, this publication also offers a more general overview of the state of statelessness globally in 2017.
The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion is an independent non-profit organisation, committed to ending statelessness and disenfranchisement through the promotion of human rights, participation and inclusion. For more information about our work, please visit www.institutesi.org.