Rights Brought Home

What practical impact does the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law have? This collection of essays explores human rights in domestic legal systems. The enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1998, ushering the European Convention on Human Rights fully into UK law, represented a landmark in the UK constitutional order. Other European states similarly have elevated the status of human rights in their domestic legal systems. However, whilst much has been written about doctrinal legal developments, little is yet known about the empirical effects of bringing rights home. This collection of essays, written by a range of distinguished socio-legal scholars, seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge. The essays, presenting new empirical research, begin their enquiry where many studies in human rights finish. The contributors do not stop at the recognition of international law and norms by states, but penetrate the internal workings of domestic legal systems to see the law in action - - as it is developed, contested, manipulated, or even ignored by actors such as judges, lawyers, civil servants, interest groups, and others. This distinctly socio-legal approach offers a unique contribution to the literature on human rights, exploring human rights law-in-action in developed countries. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of looking beyond grand generalities and the hopes of international human rights law in order to understand the impact of the global human rights movement.

Demonstrating that the state of civil liberties and human rights in the United Kingdom are quite perilous, this case study looks at the role of rights vis-à-vis social change and culture. Empirically examining the Human Rights Act (HRA), with asylum serving as the main case study, the book focuses on law in action, based on extensive fieldwork and framed against current events. It also discusses the role of Section 55—a law enacted at the same time as the HRA that was an antithesis of what the HRA promised and which forced thousands of asylum-seekers into destitution. Though Section 55 was eventually defeated, asylum-seekers in the UK are still powerless and marginalized. The book argues that the HRA has proven to be ineffective against illiberal policies and that the development of a culture of rights, as far as asylum is concerned, has stalled. This thoughtful analysis of the use of rights laws to advance social causes presents both potential and pitfalls, making it useful for sociologists, activists, and nongovernmental organizations.

This reference book is primarily a procedural work which examines the many forms, customs, and practices which have been developed and established for the House of Commons since Confederation in 1867. It provides a distinctive Canadian perspective in describing procedure in the House up to the end of the first session of the 36th Parliament in Sept. 1999. The material is presented with full commentary on the historical circumstances which have shaped the current approach to parliamentary business. Key Speaker's rulings and statements are also documented and the considerable body of practice, interpretation, and precedents unique to the Canadian House of Commons is amply illustrated. Chapters of the book cover the following: parliamentary institutions; parliaments and ministries; privileges and immunities; the House and its Members; parliamentary procedure; the physical & administrative setting; the Speaker & other presiding officers; the parliamentary cycle; sittings of the House; the daily program; oral & written questions; the process of debate; rules of order & decorum; the curtailment of debate; special debates; the legislative process; delegated legislation; financial procedures; committees of the whole House; committees; private Members' business; public petitions; private bills practice; and the parliamentary record. Includes index.

In the mid 1960s the city of Halifax decided to relocate the inhabitants of Africville--a black community that had been transformed by civil neglect, mismanagement, and poor planning into one of the worst city slums in Canadian history. Africville is a sociological account of the relocation that reveals how lack of resources and inadequate planning led to devastating consequences for Africville relocatees. Africville is a work of painstaking scholarship that reveals in detail the social injustice that marked both the life and the death of the community. It became a classic work in Canadian sociology after its original publication in 1974. The third edition contains new material that enriches the original analysis, updates the account, and highlights the continuing importance of Africville to black consciousness in Nova Scotia.