Frédéric Mégret - Böcker

The very concept of human rights implies governmental accountability. To ensure that governments are indeed held accountable for their treatment of citizens and others the United Nations has established a wide range of mechanisms to monitor compliance, and to seek to prevent as well as respond to violations. The panoply of implementation measures that the UN has taken since 1945 has resulted in a diverse and complex set of institutional arrangements, the effectiveness of which varies widely. Indeed, there is much doubt as to the effectiveness of much of the UN's human rights efforts but also about what direction it should take. Inevitable instances of politicization and the hostile, or at best ambivalent, attitude of most governments, has at times endangered the fragile progress made on the more technical fronts. At the same time, technical efforts cannot dispense with the complex politics of actualizing the promise of human rights at and through the UN. In addition to significant actual and potential problems of duplication, overlapping and inconsistent approaches, there are major problems of under-funding and insufficient expertise. The complexity of these arrangements and the difficulty in evaluating their impact makes a comprehensive guide of the type provided here all the more indispensable. These essays critically examine the functions, procedures, and performance of each of the major UN organs dealing with human rights, including the Security Council and the International Court of Justice as well as the more specialized bodies monitoring the implementation of human rights treaties. Significant attention is devoted to the considerable efforts at reforming the UN's human rights machinery, as illustrated most notably by the creation of the Human Rights Council to replace the Commission on Human Rights. The book also looks at the relationship between the various bodies and the potential for major reforms and restructuring.

The very concept of human rights implies governmental accountability. To ensure that governments are indeed held accountable for their treatment of citizens and others the United Nations has established a wide range of mechanisms to monitor compliance, and to seek to prevent as well as respond to violations. The panoply of implementation measures that the UN has taken since 1945 has resulted in a diverse and complex set of institutional arrangements, the effectiveness of which varies widely. Indeed, there is much doubt as to the effectiveness of much of the UN's human rights efforts but also about what direction it should take. Inevitable instances of politicization and the hostile, or at best ambivalent, attitude of most governments, has at times endangered the fragile progress made on the more technical fronts. At the same time, technical efforts cannot dispense with the complex politics of actualizing the promise of human rights at and through the UN. In addition to significant actual and potential problems of duplication, overlapping and inconsistent approaches, there are major problems of under-funding and insufficient expertise. The complexity of these arrangements and the difficulty in evaluating their impact makes a comprehensive guide of the type provided here all the more indispensable. These essays critically examine the functions, procedures, and performance of each of the major UN organs dealing with human rights, including the Security Council and the International Court of Justice as well as the more specialized bodies monitoring the implementation of human rights treaties. Significant attention is devoted to the considerable efforts at reforming the UN's human rights machinery, as illustrated most notably by the creation of the Human Rights Council to replace the Commission on Human Rights. The book also looks at the relationship between the various bodies and the potential for major reforms and restructuring.

In the past twenty years, international criminal law has become one of the main areas of international legal scholarship and practice. Most textbooks in the field describe the evolution of international criminal tribunals, the elements of the core international crimes, the applicable modes of liability and defences, and the role of states in prosecuting international crimes. The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, however, takes a theoretically informed and refreshingly critical look at the most controversial issues in international criminal law, challenging prevailing practices, orthodoxies, and received wisdoms. Some of the contributions to the Handbook come from scholars within the field, but many come from outside of international criminal law, or indeed from outside law itself. The chapters are grounded in history, geography, philosophy, and international relations. The result is a Handbook that expands the discipline and should fundamentally alter how international criminal law is understood.

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.

In the past twenty years, international criminal law has become one of the main areas of international legal scholarship and practice. Most textbooks in the field describe the evolution of international criminal tribunals, the elements of the core international crimes, the applicable modes of liability and defences, and the role of states in prosecuting international crimes.The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, by contrast, takes a theoretically informed and refreshingly critical look at the most controversial issues in international criminal law, challenging prevailing practices, orthodoxies, and received wisdoms. Some of the contributions to the Handbook come from scholars within the field, but many come from outside of international criminal law, or indeed from outside law itself. The chapters are grounded in history, philosophy, and international relations. The result is a Handbook that expands the discipline and should fundamentally alter how international criminal law is understood.

This handbook explores, contextualises and critiques the relationship between anthropocentrism – the idea that human beings are socially and politically at the centre of the cosmos – and international law.While the critical study of anthropocentrism has been under way for several years, it has either focused on specific subfields of international law or emanated from two distinctive strands inspired by the animal rights movement and deep ecology. This handbook offers a broader study of anthropocentrism in international law as a global legal system and academic field. It assesses the extent to which current international law is anthropocentric, contextualises that claim in relation to broader critical theories of anthropocentrism, and explores alternative ways for international law to organise relations between humans and other living and non-living entities.This book will interest international lawyers, environmental lawyers, legal theorists, social theorists, and those concerned with the philosophy and ethics of ecology and the non-human realms.Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Funded by University of Gothenburg and Lund University.

This handbook explores, contextualises and critiques the relationship between anthropocentrism – the idea that human beings are socially and politically at the centre of the cosmos – and international law.While the critical study of anthropocentrism has been under way for several years, it has either focused on specific subfields of international law or emanated from two distinctive strands inspired by the animal rights movement and deep ecology. This handbook offers a broader study of anthropocentrism in international law as a global legal system and academic field. It assesses the extent to which current international law is anthropocentric, contextualises that claim in relation to broader critical theories of anthropocentrism, and explores alternative ways for international law to organise relations between humans and other living and non-living entities.This book will interest international lawyers, environmental lawyers, legal theorists, social theorists, and those concerned with the philosophy and ethics of ecology and the non-human realms.Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Funded by University of Gothenburg and Lund University.

Interference in sovereign affairs is seemingly everywhere but nowhere at the same time. Whether it is pressure on or corruption of public officials, conditionality in development assistance, criticism of one’s human rights record, psychological or propaganda operations, instrumentalization of diasporas, international organization supervision or meddling diplomats, the phenomenon is as amorphous as it is diffuse. But what if it was the lens that we use to capture interference that was the problem? How do the tools we use in international law blind us to the reality of certain phenomena? The urgency of understanding interference on its terms has never been greater, and it requires nothing less than a reimagining of the sort of discursive investments on which international law rests.