International Library of Essays on Rights – serie

This collection brings together selected articles on key areas in the field of cultural heritage rights discourse. Contributed by an international group of scholars, the papers address conceptual and political issues and explore themes in contemporary literature on cultural heritage such as repatriation, looting and illicit trade, the effects of armed conflict and the relationship between tourism, economic development and cultural heritage. The legal regulation of cultural heritage is also discussed, with articles on regulatory challenges, current practices around the world and issues and challenges in common. Topics which are likely to become increasingly important in the future, such as climate change, cultural globalisation, human genomic science and the shift to a post-liberal, post-rights politics and law of cultural heritage, are also explored. This volume, which presents the most up-to-date scholarship in an area of increasing interest and relevance, is an indispensable reference resource for libraries, lecturers and students.

This collection examines the justifications for using bills of rights to protect fundamental human rights and the mechanisms for enforcing provisions in those documents. Articles deal with different forms of judicial enforcement and with legislative enforcement, of rights protected by such documents. The collection includes a road-map for evaluating the effectiveness of these alternative enforcement mechanisms.

Nowadays, rights are frequently ascribed to groups distinguished by their nationality, culture, religion or language. Rights are also commonly ascribed to institutionalised groups, such as states, businesses, trade unions and private associations. Yet the ascription of rights to groups remains deeply controversial. Many people reject the very idea of group rights. Amongst those who do not, there is radical disagreement about which sorts of group might possess rights and why. Some believe that group rights threaten the freedom and well-being of individuals, while others argue that the rights of groups can complement them. Some claim that group rights can also be human rights; others find that claim incoherent. The contributions making up this volume wrestle with these and many other of the issues that surround group rights. This volume brings together twenty-four of the journal articles that have contributed most significantly to contemporary thinking on group rights.

To those who invoke them, rights are powerful instruments for settling arguments in favour of the right-holders. But the nature, provenance and justification of rights are uncertain and disputed and there are doubts about whether rights should play a distinctive and fundamental role in moral and political discourse. More recent disgreements have centred on group rights and on whether rights have a universal application across different cultures and moral traditions. These and other related issues are explored in depth by the essays in this volume, which are mostly drawn from a wide range of journals in philosophy, politics and law.

Throughout the world, indigenous rights have become increasingly prominent and controversial. The recent adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the latest in a series of significant developments in the recognition of such rights across a range of jurisdictions. The papers in this collection address the most important philosophical and practical issues informing the discussion of indigenous rights over the past decade or so, at both the international and national levels. Its contributing authors comprise some of the most interesting and influential indigenous and non-indigenous thinkers presently writing on the topic.

This collection of previously published work on security and rights focuses on the appropriate relationship between rights and what we can think of as counterterrorism policy. Such a focus might seem both necessary, because of 9/11, and unfortunate, because there are other causes of insecurity besides terrorism. However, the intensity of the 'war on terror' has created an ongoing surge of scholarship on the relationship between security and human rights that either has indirect implications for debates about security where terrorism is not in issue, or has directly led to an attempt to rethink more generally the idea of security and its relationship to rights.

The erstwhile unlikely coupling of human rights and corporations is now a typical feature of corporate/community relations. High-profile corporate infringements of human rights, the rise and rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and on-going efforts to regulate corporate behaviour through legal regimes, at both domestic and international levels, have spawned a mountain of academic literature and commentary. This volume assembles the leading essays from this body of work. Together they frame the relationship between human rights and corporations by charting its history and salient features; tackle the conceptual perspectives of the relationship and detail the practice, problems and potential of the relationship.

Health Rights is a multidisciplinary collection of seminal papers examining ethical, legal, and empirical questions regarding the human right to health or health care. The volume discusses what obligations health rights entail for governments and other actors, how they relate to and potentially conflict with other rights and values, and how cultural diversity bears on the formulation and implementation of health rights. The paramount importance of such questions is illustrated, among other things, by the catastrophic health situation in developing countries and current debates about the TRIPS Agreement and health care reform in the United States. The volume is divided into five main parts which focus on philosophical questions about the bases for the right to health or health care; links between health and human rights; global bioethics and public health ethics; intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals; and finally health rights issues arising in specific contexts such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and gender.

The right to a fair trial is often held as a central constitutional protection. It nevertheless remains unclear what precisely should count as a 'fair' trial and who should decide verdicts. This already difficult issue has become even more important given a number of proposed reforms of the trial, especially for defendants charged with terrorism offences. This collection, The Right to a Fair Trial, is the first to publish in one place the most influential work in the field on the following topics: including the right to jury trial; lay participation in trials; jury nullification; trial reform; the civil jury trial; and the more recent issue of terrorism trials. The collection should help inform both scholars and students of both the importance and complexity of the right to a fair trial, as well as shed light on how the trial might be further improved.

This important volume brings together a range of material in different areas of law and the social sciences that address questions concerning the rights of minorities. The discipline is arguably one of the oldest branches of public international law, and owes its heritage to those who struggled to create standards to protect the numerically inferior and non-dominant communities from the excesses of the majority. While reflecting this rich heritage, the works contained in this volume show the extent to which policy constructs (especially in law) have begun to pay heed to the need to include minorities in different domestic settings across the globe. To provide readers with a structured approach to understanding global minority rights law the editor divides the issues into six main headings, namely: Historical Development; Conceptual Development; Contemporary Challenges; Fundamental Norms of Minority Protection; Specific Rights of Minorities; Human Rights and Minority Rights.

Rights: Concepts and Contexts contains the central works of recent scholarship on the nature of rights, with contributions by some of the most prominent contemporary theorists in moral, legal, and political philosophy, including Joseph Raz, Robert Alexy, Jeremy Waldron, Morton Horwitz, Stephen Darwall, Margaret Gilbert, David Lyons, and Aharon Barak. With approaches ranging from the political to the historical, and from the analytical to the critical, this collection touches on the major conceptual and practical questions of this important field: what is the nature and grounding of human rights? How should conflicts of rights best be analyzed? Are rights best understood in terms of choice, benefits, or some hybrid of the two? What are the connections between rights and duties, and between rights and justice? The collection also offers useful introductions to emerging issues in rights theory such as the purported bipolarity of rights.

The right to a fair trial is often held as a central constitutional protection. It nevertheless remains unclear what precisely should count as a 'fair' trial and who should decide verdicts. This already difficult issue has become even more important given a number of proposed reforms of the trial, especially for defendants charged with terrorism offences. This collection, The Right to a Fair Trial, is the first to publish in one place the most influential work in the field on the following topics: including the right to jury trial; lay participation in trials; jury nullification; trial reform; the civil jury trial; and the more recent issue of terrorism trials. The collection should help inform both scholars and students of both the importance and complexity of the right to a fair trial, as well as shed light on how the trial might be further improved.

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is a collection of seminal papers examining legal, conceptual and practical questions regarding the international legal protection of economic, social and cultural rights. The volume discusses what human rights obligations economic, social and cultural rights entail for states and non-state actors; the nature and scope of substantive economic, social and cultural rights such as education, health, work, water, enjoyment of the benefits of scientific progress, and cultural rights; as well as the justiciability of these rights at an international level and at the national level. The paramount importance of such questions is illustrated, among other things, by the catastrophic situation of economic, social and cultural rights as human rights in developing and developed states. The volume is divided into three main parts which focus on human rights obligations for states and non-state actors arising from treaties protecting economic, social and cultural rights; analysis of selected substantive rights; and finally the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights in various contexts such as within the United Nations, Europe, Inter-American, and African systems, as well as within the domestic system.

The essays selected for this volume present critical viewpoints from the debate about the need to establish rights on behalf of greater environmental protection. Three main areas for developing environmental rights are surveyed, including: extensionist theories that link existing rights (for example to subsistence or territory) to threats of harm from exacerbated resource scarcity, pollution or rapid environmental change; proposals for rights to specified environmental goods or services, such as rights to a safe environment and the capacity to assimilate greenhouse gas emissions; and rights that protect the interests of parties not currently recognized as having rights, including nonhuman subjects, natural objects and future generations. This volume captures the potential for and primary challenges to the development of rights as instruments for safeguarding the planet's life-support capacities and features proposals and analyses which argue the need to create an avenue of recourse against ecological degradation, whether on behalf of human or nonhuman right holders.

This important volume brings together a range of material in different areas of law and the social sciences that address questions concerning the rights of minorities. The discipline is arguably one of the oldest branches of public international law, and owes its heritage to those who struggled to create standards to protect the numerically inferior and non-dominant communities from the excesses of the majority. While reflecting this rich heritage, the works contained in this volume show the extent to which policy constructs (especially in law) have begun to pay heed to the need to include minorities in different domestic settings across the globe. To provide readers with a structured approach to understanding global minority rights law the editor divides the issues into six main headings, namely: Historical Development; Conceptual Development; Contemporary Challenges; Fundamental Norms of Minority Protection; Specific Rights of Minorities; Human Rights and Minority Rights.

In today’s world all claims tend to be founded on or justified by ’rights’, be they political, social, economic or private. The ubiquity of this discourse has led to a blurring of the definition of what exactly constitutes rights, not to mention a blurring of the boundaries between different bundles of rights, their sources and the various institutional practices through which they are ’enjoyed’ or asserted. Particular attention needs to be paid to the category of ’citizenship rights’. Exactly how are they distinguished from human rights? This volume presents some of the most important reflections and studies on citizenship rights, both past and present. The contributions provide both thorough description and incisive analysis and place the question of citizenship rights into a wider historical, social and political perspective. As such, it offers a timely introduction to the current debates surrounding the rights and duties of both citizens and non-citizens alike, with a focus on the many ways in which citizenship is contested in the contemporary world. The volume is invaluable to scholars and students of citizenship studies, political and critical theory, human rights, sociology, urban development and law.

Debate about the rights of sexual minorities, whether individuals or members of same-sex couples, has become an important issue for legislatures and courts in many constitutional democracies. This volume collects together some of the more significant writings in the debate, and reflects a variety of perspectives: liberal, conservative, and radical. The topics covered include the meaning and importance of sexual freedom, gender roles, marriage and other significant partnerships, child care and adoption, the criminal law, employment, and expression and pornography. The volume also seeks to relate arguments about sexual orientation and rights to broader debates within feminist theory.

Rights: Concepts and Contexts contains the central works of recent scholarship on the nature of rights, with contributions by some of the most prominent contemporary theorists in moral, legal, and political philosophy, including Joseph Raz, Robert Alexy, Jeremy Waldron, Morton Horwitz, Stephen Darwall, Margaret Gilbert, David Lyons, and Aharon Barak. With approaches ranging from the political to the historical, and from the analytical to the critical, this collection touches on the major conceptual and practical questions of this important field: what is the nature and grounding of human rights? How should conflicts of rights best be analyzed? Are rights best understood in terms of choice, benefits, or some hybrid of the two? What are the connections between rights and duties, and between rights and justice? The collection also offers useful introductions to emerging issues in rights theory such as the purported bipolarity of rights.

The right to bodily integrity has become a notable controversial issue within moral, political and legal discourse and this right is regarded as one of the most precious rights that persons have, alongside the right to life. Recent scholarly debate has focused attention on the content, scope and force of this right and has lead to the recognition that a better understanding of the nature of this right will contribute to determining whether and why a multitude of clinical and research activities in medical practice should be seen as permissible or impermissible. The essays selected for this volume examine topics such as pregnancy and reproduction, altering children’s bodies, transplantation, controversial modifications and surgeries, and experimentation and dead bodies. This is the first collection of scholarly research articles to provide a comprehensive overview of the ethical and legal aspects of the right to bodily integrity and its implications in theory and practice.

This volume brings together a selection of the most important published research articles from the ongoing debate about the moral rights of prisoners. The articles consider the moral underpinnings of the debate and include framework discussions for a theory of prisoners’ rights as well as several international documents which detail the rights of prisoners, including women prisoners. Finally, detailed analysis of the moral bases for particular rights relating to prison conditions covers areas such as: health, solitary confinement, recreation, work, religious observance, library access, the use of prisoners in research and the disenfranchisement of prisoners.

This collection brings together selected articles on key areas in the field of cultural heritage rights discourse. Contributed by an international group of scholars, the papers address conceptual and political issues and explore themes in contemporary literature on cultural heritage such as repatriation, looting and illicit trade, the effects of armed conflict and the relationship between tourism, economic development and cultural heritage. The legal regulation of cultural heritage is also discussed, with articles on regulatory challenges, current practices around the world and issues and challenges in common. Topics which are likely to become increasingly important in the future, such as climate change, cultural globalisation, human genomic science and the shift to a post-liberal, post-rights politics and law of cultural heritage, are also explored. This volume, which presents the most up-to-date scholarship in an area of increasing interest and relevance, is an indispensable reference resource for libraries, lecturers and students.

The central focus of this collection of essays is the role and place of freedom of religion in the protection and promotion of world order. The volume offers competing models of world order from a global perspective and highlights the lack of consensus and considerable variety of practice and belief around the globe as to the definition of religious freedom and where and whether freedom of religion is regarded as the first freedom in the world. The leading theories of freedom of religion are discussed and provide an understanding of freedom of religion beyond the nation state. The liberal view at the global level is also examined and observations are included regarding the need to rethink secularism in the light of present circumstances and within the global context.

This reference volume brings together the key academic contributions that have shaped the field of language rights over the last 40 years. Work in language rights is particularly concerned with the rights of minority language speakers in modern nation-states. It also encompasses related discussions on language endangerment, the maintenance of bilingualism and multilingualism, the role of education, and the impact of English as the current world language in an increasingly globalized world. As such, the field of language rights is also strongly interdisciplinary, drawing on work in language policy, sociolinguistics, political theory, law and education - all key disciplinary areas that are represented in this volume. It is also avowedly international, with discussion in this volume of contexts that span Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania/the Pacific region. The various contributions in this volume also address a range of linguistic minority groups, including Indigenous peoples, national minorities, and migrant groups. This volume is relevant to a wide range of students and scholars interested in issues of language endangerment, linguistic justice, language and citizenship, human rights, Indigenous studies, language education, bilingualism and multilingualism, and English as a world language.

The concept of the migrant as rights bearer at law is surprisingly recent and under-developed. Migrants have traditionally been seen as outsiders, persons who are in society but not yet of society. Migrants are at best invitees, ’guests’ for whom presence in a country is a privilege. This is the first of two volumes which bring together writings which trace the evolution in thinking about migrants as legal subjects and rights holders. The articles cover: issues around state sovereignty and migrants as subjects of international law; the articulation of rights; different categories of migrants; issues around health and disability. The volume also features an extended article on the proposal for an International Migrants’ Bill of Rights (IMBR) put forward by an international consortium of academics and students. A related volume Refugees and Rights is also published as part of the series.

Forced migration is both as ancient as human life on earth and a relatively new subject of interest for human rights scholars. This volume continues the discussion from Migrants and Rights to focus attention on refugees, victims of trafficking and others who cross borders seeking protection from anthropogenic or natural disasters. The opening essays provide historical and conceptual overviews of rights to freedom of movement and asylum; and links between human rights and refugee law. Articles on the principle of non-refoulement in international law explore the occasional disjuncture between the individual’s right to protection and the State’s rights to protect its national interests. The refugee’s rights to due process and the substance of entitlements at law are explored in essays that range across administrative processes; social and cultural rights, including family reunion; detention; and the right of return. There follow four essays that address sexual orientation and refugee rights; refugees and disability rights; human rights and persons displaced by climate change disasters; and the rights of victims of human trafficking. The volume concludes with work reflecting on the rights discourse outside of traditional ’Western’ theatres. These cover Africa (Kenya), India, South America (Brazil) and the Asia-Pacific (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea).