From Civil To Human Rights

Defining Civil and Political Rights provides a comprehensive analysis and commentary on the decisions - technically known as views - of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, for use by human rights lawyers throughout the world. Each of the substantive rights and freedoms set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is considered in detail, by analysis of final reviews and comments of the Human Rights Committee. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to take account of recent jurisprudence on the Human Rights Committee. New material has been added based upon substantive areas of the committee's jurisprudence.

Helle Porsdam s new book is a readable and perceptive analysis of European and American perceptions of essential human rights and their roots in national and regional cultures. Professor Porsdam traces the notions of civil, political, social and economic interests as rights protected and implemented by law on both sides of the Atlantic. From Civil to Human Rights is a must read for Europeans, Americans, and everyone else who wants to learn more about the institutions, values, hopes and dreams that bring us together and hold us apart at the beginning of the 21st century. Peter L. Murray, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, US Is there a special human rights narrative emerging from the chastened soul of post-war Europe? What lies ahead for that great but shattered community? Helle Porsdam, a leader in the related fields of human rights and humane letters, bids fair to answer these and other pressing questions. Along the way her highly nuanced intellect addresses the frustrating differences among those contentious first cousins, Europe and the United States. The result is a wide-ranging, richly informed inquiry about Europe s rise from the ashes and the choices it must make to inspire rather than repulse the world around it. Richard Weisberg, Cardozo Law School, New York, US Europeans have attempted for some time to develop a human rights talk and now European intellectuals are talking about the need to construct European narratives . This book illustrates that these narratives will emphasize a political and cultural vision for a multi-ethnic and more cosmopolitan Europe. The narratives evolve around human rights, partly in the hope that they might function as a cultural glue in an increasingly multi-ethnic Europe, and partly because they are intimately connected with that part of enlightenment thinking that sought to promote democracy and the rule of law. Helle Porsdam discusses the development of human rights as a discourse of atonement for Europeans a discourse which has the potential to become a shared, transatlantic discourse. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be an invaluable research tool for postgraduate students and scholars within the fields of law, history, political science and international relations.

Martin Luther King, Jr., is widely celebrated as an American civil rights hero. Yet King's nonviolent opposition to racism, militarism, and economic injustice had deeper roots and more radical implications than is commonly appreciated, Thomas F. Jackson argues in this searching reinterpretation of King's public ministry. Between the 1940s and the 1960s, King was influenced by and in turn reshaped the political cultures of the black freedom movement and democratic left. His vision of unfettered human rights drew on the diverse tenets of the African American social gospel, socialism, left-New Deal liberalism, Gandhian philosophy, and Popular Front internationalism. King's early leadership reached beyond southern desegregation and voting rights. As the freedom movement of the 1950s and early 1960s confronted poverty and economic reprisals, King championed trade union rights, equal job opportunities, metropolitan integration, and full employment. When the civil rights and antipoverty policies of the Johnson administration failed to deliver on the movement's goals of economic freedom for all, King demanded that the federal government guarantee jobs, income, and local power for poor people. When the Vietnam war stalled domestic liberalism, King called on the nation to abandon imperialism and become a global force for multiracial democracy and economic justice. Drawing widely on published and unpublished archival sources, Jackson explains the contexts and meanings of King's increasingly open call for "a radical redistribution of political and economic power" in American cities, the nation, and the world. The mid-1960s ghetto uprisings were in fact revolts against unemployment, powerlessness, police violence, and institutionalized racism, King argued. His final dream, a Poor People's March on Washington, aimed to mobilize Americans across racial and class lines to reverse a national cycle of urban conflict, political backlash, and policy retrenchment. King's vision of economic democracy and international human rights remains a powerful inspiration for those committed to ending racism and poverty in our time.

This book shows how human rights became the primary language for social change in Canada and how a single decade became the locus for that emergence. The author argues that the 1970s was a critical moment in human rights history—one that transformed political culture, social movements, law, and foreign policy. Human Rights in Canada is one of the first sociological studies of human rights in Canada. It explains that human rights are a distinct social practice, and it documents those social conditions that made human rights significant at a particular historical moment. A central theme in this book is that human rights derive from society rather than abstract legal principles. Therefore, we can identify the boundaries and limits of Canada’s rights culture at different moments in our history. Until the 1970s, Canadians framed their grievances with reference to Christianity or British justice rather than human rights. A historical sociological approach to human rights reveals how rights are historically contingent, and how new rights claims are built upon past claims. This book explores governments’ tendency to suppress rights in periods of perceived emergency; how Canada’s rights culture was shaped by state formation; how social movements have advanced new rights claims; the changing discourse of rights in debates surrounding the constitution; how the international human rights movement shaped domestic politics and foreign policy; and much more. In addition to drawing on secondary literature in law, history, sociology, and political science, this study looked to published government documents, litigation and case law, archival research, newspapers, opinion polls, and materials produced by non-governmental organizations.

This volume contributes to the on-going legal discussion on pressing procedural and substantial law issues in the ambit of international human rights and civil liberties. While the 20th century has seen the true awakening of human rights, the 21st century poses new challenges to this ever-unfolding area of law. Not only do international tribunals and quasi-tribunals worldwide and domestic US and European continental courts have to deal with increasing numbers of complaints and petitions from individuals and groups on a vast array of societal problems, the legal issues put to them are sometimes extremely difficult to resolve as they relate to very sensitive issues. This book examines issues ranging from the status of human rights under US law to the status of the ECHR in the broader context of international law. It looks at the role of positive obligations in the case law of the Strasbourg Court, as well the impact of its case-law on childbirth and push-back operation towards boat people, but also at the growing unwillingness of ECHR member states to cooperate with the Strasbourg Court. It explores the new frontiers in US Capital punishment litigation, the first case before the International Criminal Court and the legal effect of judgments of the European Court on third states.​

More than merely describing developments in the field of civil liberties and human rights, this comprehensive and challenging textbook provides students with detailed and thought-provoking coverage and analysis of the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 in an era in which human rights are coming increasingly under pressure. Extensively re-written and updated since the last edition, here Helen Fenwick considers the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998, paying particular attention to Labour legislation, especially in the fields of criminal justice and terrorism. This book: considers recent key domestic decisions in the post-Human Rights Act era, including Campbell, A and Others v Secretary of State for the Home Dept, Ghaidan v Mendoza, R(Gillan) v Commisioner of Police of the Metropolis contains a new chapter on important developments in counter-terrorism law – covering the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 and the Terrorism Acts 2005 and 2006 analyzes key developments in the sphere of media freedom, including the impact of the Communications Act 2003, Pro-life Alliance and Campbell explores new developments in criminal justice, including the Serious and Organized Crime Act 2005 addresses the changes in the field of anti-discrimination law, including the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2003 and Equality Act 2006. This textbook is an essential resource for students studying the development of human rights and civil liberties in the early years of the twenty-first century.

What private law avenues are open to victims of human rights violations? This innovative new collection explores this question across sixteen jurisdictions in the Global South and Global North. It examines existing mechanisms in domestic law for bringing civil claims in relation to the involvement of states, corporations and individuals in specific categories of human rights violation: (i) assault or unlawful arrest and detention of persons; (ii) environmental harm; and (iii) harmful or unfair labour conditions. Taking a truly global perspective, it assesses the question in jurisdictions as diverse as Kenya, Switzerland, the US and the Philippines. A much needed and important new statement on how to respond to human rights violations.

Global civil society and the society of democratic states are the two most inclusive and powerful global practices of our time. In this book, Frost claims that, without an understanding of the role that individual human rights play in these practices, no adequate understanding of any major feature of contemporary world politics from 'globalisation' to 'new wars' is possible. Constituting Human Rights, therefore argues that a concern with human rights is essential to the study of International Relations.