State Building Rule Of Law Good Governance And Human Rights In Post Soviet Space

This edited book analyses the issues of state-building, the rule of law and good governance, and human rights in the post-Soviet space after 30 years from the USSR dissolution. In doing so, it assesses the presence (or absence) and the level of influence of the Soviet legacies in the constructed political and legal systems of the post-Soviet republics. Assessing whether individual’s interests are protected in theory and practice, the book conceptualizes the legacies that the Soviet Union left in the post-Soviet space after 30 years of disintegration. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of human rights, governance, democratization studies, post-Soviet and Russia studies, and more widely to comparative politics, political economy, humanitarian studies and political history.

This study critically assesses the condition of Russia's political, economic, social, legal, and military institutions and questions the capacity of the institutions to perform the duties of a state in the modern world. Has the Russian state managed to lay the institutional groundwork for long-term stability and democratic governance? The consensus of the contributors to this book is grim. The courts have grown increasingly complex, but their ability to enhance and support democracy has remained limited. State economic institutions have been unable to collect taxes, pay government workers, fund the healthcare system, pay its soldiers, or retain value in its currency. Political mechanisms for resolving center-periphery conflicts remain ineffective, and Russia's political institutions seem less focused on serving public interests than on enriching the power of those in power.

International law is usually conservative, with lawyers and judges emphasizing consistency, stability and predictability as the major advantages of the law. Legal scholars often prefer not to challenge the status quo, to suggest amendments, or to reform institutions, advocating simply to focus on the implementation of the laws that already exist. This collection stands different. It shares the authors’ discomfort with the present legal order and some of its institutions and courts, and dives into either a corrective or a profound reimagination of these, so that they can better address rising global challenges. Leading experts in their areas present their new and cutting-edge perspectives. Divided into six parts, the volume paints a vast yet solid thematic landscape of unique and critical approaches. The book invites and allows for a deep engagement with a wide range of opinions from across the world. It enables a free and courageous reimagining of the international legal order, detached from the endless feasibility skepticism. The work will be fascinating reading for students, academics and researchers working in the areas of International Law and International Relations.

Comparative law is a common subject-matter of research and teaching in many universities around the world, and the twenty-first century has aptly been termed 'the era of comparative law'. This Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Law presents a truly global perspective of comparative law today. The contributors are drawn from all parts of the world to provide different perspectives on how we understand the 'law' and how it operates in practice. In substance, the Handbook contains 36 chapters covering a broad range of topics, divided under the following headings: 'Methods of Comparative Law' (Part I), 'Legal Families and Geographical Comparisons' (Part II), 'Central Themes in Comparative Law' (Part III); and 'Comparative Law beyond the State' (Part IV).

Launched in 1991, the Asian Yearbook of International Law is a major internationally-refereed yearbook dedicated to international legal issues as seen primarily from an Asian perspective. It is published under the auspices of the Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia (DILA) in collaboration with DILA-Korea, the Secretariat of DILA, in South Korea. When it was launched, the Yearbook was the first publication of its kind, edited by a team of leading international law scholars from across Asia. It provides a forum for the publication of articles in the field of international law and other Asian international legal topics. The objectives of the Yearbook are two-fold: First, to promote research, study and writing in the field of international law in Asia; and second, to provide an intellectual platform for the discussion and dissemination of Asian views and practices on contemporary international legal issues. Each volume of the Yearbook contains articles and shorter notes; a section on Asian state practice; an overview of the Asian states’ participation in multilateral treaties and succinct analysis of recent international legal developments in Asia; a bibliography that provides information on books, articles, notes, and other materials dealing with international law in Asia; as well as book reviews. This publication is important for anyone working on international law and international relations.

This book uses a practice-driven and empirically founded approach to address the question of whether and how international attention can protect and enable domestic human rights activists in authoritarian settings. It examines the untold origin story of the ‘human rights defender’ term and its uptake among international advocacy organizations, which coalesced with the rise of a theory of human rights change centered around the support for local actors. Rich with analyses of original qualitative and quantitative data, the author spells out this theory of change and tests its assumptions in two case studies: the individual casework of the UN special procedures, and the case of Tunisia under Ben Ali. This book is of key interest to scholars and students of human rights, of the United Nations, and more broadly of international relations and politics in general, and to practitioners working with human rights defenders at risk.

Examining the prevalent issue of domestic violence, this book breaks down the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of existing human rights instruments and the gaps in current legal systems failing those in need. Through a variety of key case studies, it reveals significant gaps in the legal conceptualisation of domestic violence between human rights standards on the one hand and the national legal systems examined—those of Ireland and Lithuania—on the other. The book reveals that, contrary to gender-based universal human rights approaches and despite recent legislative reforms, the legal concept of domestic violence is gender-blind. It fails to capture gender-based empirical realities on the ground, rendering national legal systems devoid of an empirically informed theoretical basis for addressing the problem. Despite the differences in the contextual backgrounds of the two case study countries, the legislation on domestic violence is underpinned by patriarchal beliefs in both. This book employs a gender-based examination of the issue that will be of key interest to scholars, legal practitioners, civil society actors, and students of feminist legal theory, gender equality, gender in international law, gender and human rights and conceptual democracy.

This book focuses on border deaths at sea. It unravels how the interplay of the law of the sea and rules on jurisdiction widen the opportunity for states to make and enforce rules outside their territory, and questions whether this is also accompanied with an obligation to respect the right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) when doing so. By embarking upon the challenge of analysing a cross-border phenomenon in which direct encounters between state agents and the victims are few through the lens of legal obligations, the book unearths avenues for arguing that the ECHR is applicable to border deaths on the high seas and showcases the Court’s creativity in bridging the gap between the Convention and people in need of protection. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the ECHR is applicable to border deaths occurring within the territorial seas of states. It discusses the right to life, as well as the specific obligations of states in respect to border deaths at sea, and demonstrates that in many instances, EU policies fall short of the standards set under the right to life. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners in migrant rights, international human rights law, public international law including, refugee and migration law, maritime law, and security studies.