Human Rights Annual Report 2008

This report examines the Government's record in relation to securing the human rights of British citizens and others overseas and its work in promoting human rights in other countries. The report covers rendition, allegations of UK complicity in torture, transfers of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan and the regulation of private military and security companies. It also provides an examination of the international human rights framework and human rights abuses in individual countries of concern including Burma, China, Colombia, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Zimbabwe and also in the UK's overseas territories.

This report covers the period 1 January to 31 December 2008. It provides an overview of the main challenges to human rights around the world and explains the government's activities and policies to address those challenges. Chapters covering policy goals are: counter-terrorism, weapons proliferation and their causes; promoting a low carbon, high growth economy; preventing and resolving conflict; developing effective international institutions. Key human rights themes include equality, democracy, the rule of law. Other chapters cover: the British overseas territories and human rights of British nationals abroad; and a review of countries of concern, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

The FCO departmental report and resource accounts 2008-09 published as HC 460-I,II (ISBN 9780102961614)

For four consecutive years, Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations has been keen on producing the annual Palestinian Strategic Report. This report, that is prepared by a select of distinguished experts, is considered among the finest references in the field of Palestinian studies, because of its highly academic content that includes the most recent statistical data and is supported with charts and figures. This report is the product of a massive team-work exerted by a group of affiliated researchers and specialists; editors, and consultants. It is published both in Arabic and English. The first Report covered the year 2005. As later reports were released annually, the report was well-received and highly acclaimed, especially within academics. Today, it can be surely asserted that this report is a must reference for every researcher or academic interests in the contemporary developments of the Palestinian issue and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Moreover, its English version is among the few highly academic and objective writings in this field by an Arab research centre.

This book brings legal and academic perspective to the theory and practice surrounding the right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time. This field of rights has been somewhat neglected academically, a fact which jars with the sheer volume of case law budding from this single, simple, fundamental right, bearing testimony to the widespread concern with delay in judicial proceedings which transcends the boundaries of states or legal systems. The work provides a blueprint for analysing the effectiveness of legal remedies across entire legal systems, as well as in any given individual case. The first part focuses on deriving legal principles from the body of jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, while the second part contains illustrations of the practical application of such principles. The content constitutes essential reading for students, academics, lawyers, judges, practitioners and all those who wish to understand the issue of delay in judicial proceedings, and the legal context of available remedies. The author aims to raise awareness about the human rights issues which come into play when delivery of justice is delayed, and to provide both an academic and practical reference.

Concerns associated with globalisation of markets, exacerbated by the 'credit crunch', have placed pressure on many nation states to make their labour markets more 'flexible'. In so doing, many states have sought to reduce labour standards and to diminish the influence of trade unions as the advocates of such standards. One response to this development, both nationally and internationally, has been to emphasise that workers' rights are fundamental human rights. This collection of essays examines whether this is an appropriate or effective strategy. The book begins by considering the translation of human rights discourse into labour standards, namely how theory might be put into practice. The remainder of the book tests hypotheses posited in the first chapter and is divided into three parts. The first part investigates, through a number of national case studies, how, in practice, workers' rights are treated as human rights in the domestic legal context. These ten chapters cover African, American, Asian, European, and Pacific countries. The second part consists of essays which analyse the operation of regional or international systems for human rights promotion, and their particular relevance to the treatment of workers' rights as human rights. The final part consists of chapters which explore regulatory alternatives to the traditional use of human rights law. The book concludes by considering the merits of various regulatory approaches.

What does compliance with judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) look like in states on the spectrum of democratisation? This work provides an in-depth investigation of three such states—Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia— in the wider context of the growing 'implementation crisis' in Europe, and does so through a combined lens of theoretical insights and rich empirical data. The book offers a detailed analysis of the domestic contexts varying from democratising to increasingly authoritarian tendencies, which shape the states’ compliance behaviour, and discusses why and how such states comply with human rights judgments. It puts particular focus on ‘contested’ compliance as a new form of compliance behaviour involving states’ acting in ‘bad faith’ and argues for a revival of the concept of partial compliance. The wider impact that ECtHR judgments have in states on the spectrum of democratisation is also explored.