Abstract
Accessing Asylum in Europe: Extraterritorial Border Controls and Refugee Rights under EU Law / Violeta Moreno Lax. Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9780198701002
This monograph examines the interface between extraterritorial border surveillance, migration management, and asylum seeking under EU law. The final goal is to determine the compatibility of pre-entry controls, carried out in the form of Schengen visas, carrier sanctions (with or without assistance from ILOs), and maritime interdiction, with the fundamental rights acquis of the EU, in particular the right to protection against refoulement, the right to asylum, and the rights to good administration and effective judicial protection enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The conflictual assertion contained in Tampere and successor programmes that the Union shall remain ‘open’ to those seeking access to it in search of protection, but, at the same time, ‘counteract illegal immigration and cross-border crime’ provides the background to this research. The result has been an ambiguous regulation of access to EU territory for asylum purposes. Two sets of rules have developed simultaneously, which are difficult to reconcile: one set assimilates protection seekers to the generic category of ‘third-country nationals’ subject to Schengen admission criteria, with another set containing references to ‘special provisions’ applicable to exiles, leading to a situation where up to 90% of refugee arrivals occur through irregular (unsafe) channels, as smuggled or trafficked migrants. In these circumstances, elucidating the exact reach of EU international protection obligations and the articulation between EU border/pre-border norms and EU fundamental rights becomes essential. The monograph thus strives to determine the content of the specific responsibilities of the Member States in this context and establish their implications for the ‘integrated border management’ system the Union is committed to realise.
The Human Right to Water: Theory, Practice and Prospects / Malcolm Langford and Anna F. S. Russell (eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9781108517508
In a short space of time, the right to water has emerged from relative obscurity to claim a prominent place in human rights theory and practice. This book explores this rise descriptively and prescriptively. It analyses the recognition, use and partly impact, of the right to water in international and comparative law, civil society mobilisation and public policy. It also scrutinises the normative implications of the right to water with a focus on challenges and puzzles it creates for law and policymaking. These questions are explored globally and comparatively within different dynamics of the sector - water allocation, water access and urban and rural water reform - and in conjunction with the right to sanitation. This multi-disciplinary volume reveals the diverse ways in which the right to water has been adopted, but also its limitations when faced with the realities of political economy, political ecology and partly, traditional legal thought.
Transitional Justice and the Public Sphere: Engagement, Legitimacy and Contestation / Chrisje Brants and Susanne Karstedt (eds.). Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. ISBN: 1509900187 9781509900183
Transparency is a fundamental principle of justice. A cornerstone of the rule of law, it allows for public engagement and for democratic control of the decisions and actions of both the judiciary and the justice authorities. This book looks at the question of transparency within the framework of transitional justice. Bringing together scholars from across the disciplinary spectrum, the collection analyses the issue from socio-legal, cultural studies and practitioner perspectives. Taking a three-part approach, it firstly discusses basic principles guiding justice globally before exploring courts and how they make justice visible. Finally, the collection reviews the interface between law, transitional justice institutions and the public sphere.
Children, Autonomy and the Courts: Beyond the Right to be Heard / Aoife Daly. Brill Nijhoff, 2018. ISBN: 9789004355811
This book provides a thorough analysis of how the right of children to be heard in proceedings is conceptualised in international human rights law and how it is given further meaning through judicial interpretation at both international and domestic level. The work constitutes a significant contribution to existing literature, as it provides an analysis of the parameters to and understandings of the right of children to be heard in legal proceedings, as well as critiquing the limitations of the right itself.
Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Human Rights: Challenges and Critiques / Gaetano Pentassuglia (eds.). Brill Nijhoff, 2018. ISBN: 9789004328778
What is the role of ethno-cultural groups in human rights discourse? Under international human rights law, standards are unclear and ambivalent, while traditional analyses have often failed to elucidate and unpack the conceptual, legal, and policy complexities involved. In Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Human Rights, prominent experts chart new territory by addressing contested dimensions of the field. They include the impact of collective interests on rights discourse and nation-building, international law’s responses to group demands for decision-making authority, and concerns for immigration, intersectionality, and peacebuilding. Drawing from diverse scholarship in international law, legal and moral philosophy, and political science, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and practitioners of human rights, diversity, and conflict management.
Food Diversity Between Rights, Duties and Autonomies: Legal Perspectives for a Scientific, Cultural and Social Debate on the Right to Food and Agroecology / Alessandro Isoni, Michele Troisi and Maurizia Pierri (eds.). Springer International, 2018. ISBN: 3319751956
The book reflects on the issues concerning, on the one hand, the difficulty in feeding an ever- increasing world population and, on the other hand, the need to build new productive systems able to protect the planet from overexploitation. The concept of “food diversity” is a synthesis of diversities: biodiversity of ecological sources of food supply; socio-territorial diversity; and cultural diversity of food traditions. In keeping with this transdisciplinary perspective, the book collects a large number of contributions that examine, firstly the relationships between agrobiodiversity, rural sustainable systems and food diversity; and secondly, the issues concerning typicality (food specialties/food identities), rural development and territorial communities. Lastly, it explores legal questions concerning the regulations aiming to protect both the food diversity and the right to food, in the light of the political, economic and social implications related to the problem of feeding the world population, while at the same time respecting local communities’ rights, especially in the developing countries. The book collects the works of legal scholars, agroecologists, historians and sociologists from around the globe.
Human Rights and Power in Times of Globalisation / Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko (ed.). Brill Nijhoff, 2018. ISBN: 9789004346390
How does globalisation affect the ability of human rights to constrain power? This is the central question of this volume that tackles the issue from a variety of perspectives. It covers such branches of international law and human rights as diplomatic protection, powers of the UN Security Council, responsibility of international organisations, accountability of multinational corporations, third-generation rights, law of armed conflict, and state sovereignty. The contributions problematize the role of human rights and call for rethinking of the structure and functioning of human rights. The contributions adopt a variety of disciplinary perspectives that all elucidate difficulties human rights face in a globalised world and suggest ways forward.
Justice and Diplomacy: Resolving Contradictions in Diplomatic Practice and International Humanitarian Law / Yves Doutriaux, Mark S. Ellis and Timothy W. Ryback (eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9781316510889
Diplomacy is used primarily to advance the interests of a state beyond its borders, within a set of global norms intended to assure a degree of international harmony. As a result of internal and international armed conflicts, the need to negotiate peace through an emerging system of international humanitarian and criminal law has required nations to use diplomacy to negotiate ‘peace versus justice’ trade-offs. Justice and Diplomacy is the product of a research project sponsored by the Academie Diplomatique Internationale and the International Bar Association, and focuses on specific moments of collision or contradiction in diplomatic and judicial processes during the humanitarian crises in Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, Darfur, and Libya. The five case studies present critical issues at the intersection of justice and diplomacy, including the role of timing, signalling, legal terminology, accountability, and compliance. Each case study focuses on a specific moment and dynamic, highlighting the key issues and lessons learned.
Letters to the Contrary: A Curated History of the UNESCO Human Rights Survey / Mark Goodale (ed.). Stanford University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9780804799003
Since its adoption in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) has served as the foundation for the protection of human rights around the world. Historians and human rights scholars have claimed that the UDHR was influenced by UNESCO’s 1947–48 global survey of intellectuals, theologians, and cultural and political leaders, a survey that supposedly revealed a truly universal consensus on human rights. This book provides a curated history of the UNESCO human rights survey and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary debates over the origins, legitimacy, and universality of human rights.
Based on meticulous archival research, Letters to the Contrary revises and enlarges the conventional understanding of UNESCO’s human rights survey. Mark Goodale’s extensive archival research uncovers a historical record filled with letters and responses that were omitted, polite refusals to respond, and outright rejections of the universal human rights ideal. This volume collects these neglected survey responses, including letters by T. S. Eliot, Mahatma Gandhi, W. H. Auden, and other important artists and thinkers.
In collecting, annotating, and analysing these responses, Goodale reveals an alternative history that is deeply connected to the ongoing life of human rights in the twenty-first century. This history demonstrates that the UNESCO human rights survey was much less than supposed, but also much more. In many ways, the intellectual struggles, moral questions, and ideological doubts among the different participants who both organized and responded to the survey reveal a strikingly critical and contemporary orientation, raising similar questions at the centre of current debates surrounding human rights scholarship and practice.
Rethinking Transitional Justice for the Twenty-first Century: Beyond the End of History / Dustin N. Sharp. Cambridge University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9781108598309 1108598307
Transitional justice is the dominant lens through which the world grapples with legacies of mass atrocity, and yet it has rarely reflected the diversity of peace and justice traditions around the world. Hewing to a largely western and legalist script, truth commissions and war crimes tribunals have become the default means of ‘doing justice’. Re-Thinking Transitional Justice for the Twenty-First Century puts the blind spots and assumptions of transitional justice under the microscope, and asks whether the field might be re-imagined to better suit the diversity and realities of the twenty-first century. At the core of this re-imagining is an examination of the broader field of post-conflict peace building and associated critical theory, from which both caution and inspiration can be drawn. By using this lens, Dustin N. Sharp shows how we might begin to generate a more cosmopolitan and mosaic theory and imagine more creative and context-sensitive approaches to building peace with justice.
The Right to Food and the World Trade Organization’s Rules on Agriculture: Conflicting, Compatible or Complementary? / Rhonda Ferguson. Brill Nijhoff, 2018. ISBN: 9789004345072 9004345078
In The Right to Food and the World Trade Organization's Rules on Agriculture: Conflicting, Compatible, or Complementary?, Rhonda Ferguson explores the relationship between the human right to food and agricultural trade rules. She questions whether States can adhere to their obligations under both regimes simultaneously. These two regimes are frequently portrayed to be in tension with one another. The content and contours of the right to food under international human rights law and WTO rules on domestic supports, export subsidies, and market access are considered through the lens of norm conflict theories. The analysis is situated within the context of the debate surrounding the fragmentation of international law.
Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights / Pieter van Dijk, Fried van Hoof, Arjen van Rijn and Leo Zwaak. 5th ed., Intersentia, 2018. ISBN: 1780684940
Since the first edition of Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights forty years ago, this book has become the leading reference in the field of human rights in Europe. It provides a systematic and comprehensive overview of the functioning of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its application by the European Court of Human Rights. With Protocol No. 14 entering into force on 1 June 2010, the protection of human rights in Europe and the case law of the Court have seen a dynamic development during the last decade. A completely new edition of Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights was thus very much needed. This fifth edition is again an accessible, easy-to-use, complete and up-to-date reference book, which provides an essential source of information for the practitioners, theorists and students in the field of human rights.
A Transnational Human Rights Approach to Human Trafficking: Empowering the Powerless / Yoon Jin Shin. Brill, 2018. ISBN: 9789004311138 9004311130
In A Transnational Human Rights Approach to Human Trafficking: Empowering the Powerless, Yoon Jin Shin proposes an innovative approach to empower individuals victimized by human trafficking, one of the most serious human rights challenges in today’s world of globalization and migration. Based on thorough empirical research and extensive comparative studies, Shin illuminates complex realities of migrant individuals experiencing trafficking situations and the problems of the current anti-trafficking regime driven by destination countries’ self-interest in crime and border control. Shin suggests an alternative transnational human rights framework, in which victimized migrants, who have been treated as passive targets of victim-witness protection or immigration regulation, finally attain their true voices as empowered rights-holders and effectively exercise their human, civil, and labour rights.
Human Rights in the Council of Europe and the European Union: Achievements, Trends and Challenges / Steven Greer, Janneke Gerards and Rose Slowe. Cambridge University Press, 2018. ISBN: 9781139179041
Confusion about the differences between the Council of Europe and the European Union is commonplace amongst the general public. It even affects some lawyers, jurists, social scientists and students. This book will enable the reader to distinguish clearly between those human rights norms which originate in the Council of Europe and those which derive from the EU, vital for anyone interested in human rights in Europe and in the UK as it prepares to leave the EU. The main achievements of relevant institutions include securing minimum standards across the continent as they deal with increasing expansion, complexity, multidimensionality, and interpenetration of their human rights activities. The authors also identify the central challenges, particularly for the UK in the post-Brexit era where the components of each system need to be carefully distinguished and disentangled.