Adjudicating International Human Rights


Book Description

Adjudicating International Human Rights honours Professor Sandy Ghandhi on his retirement from law teaching. It does so through a series of targeted essays which probe the framework and adequacy of international human rights adjudication. Eminent international law scholars (such as Sir Nigel Rodley, Professor Javaid Rehman and Professor Malcolm Evans), along with emerging writers in the field, take Professor Ghandhi’s body of work—focussed on human rights protection through legal institutions—as a starting point for a variety of analytical essays. Adjudicating International Human Rights includes chapters devoted to human rights protection in a number of different institutional contexts, ranging from the ICJ and the Human Rights Committee to truth commissions and NAFTA arbitration tribunals.




Law Applicable to Armed Conflict


Book Description

Which law applies to armed conflict? This book investigates the applicability of international humanitarian law and international human rights law to armed conflict situations. The issue is examined by three scholars whose professional, theoretical, and methodological backgrounds and outlooks differ greatly. These multiple perspectives expose the political factors and intellectual styles that influence scholarly approaches and legal answers, and the unique trialogical format encourages its participants to decenter their perspectives. By focussing on the authors' divergence and disagreement, a richer understanding of the law applicable to armed conflict is achieved. The book, firstly, provides a detailed study of the law applicable to armed conflict situations. Secondly, it explores the regimes' interrelation and the legal techniques for their coordination and prevention of potential norm conflicts. Thirdly, the book moves beyond the positive analysis of the law and probes the normative principles that guide the interpretation, application and development of law.




Conflicts of Rights in the European Union


Book Description

Underlying the protection of human rights in Europe is a complex network of overlapping legal systems - domestic, EU, and ECHR. This book focuses on the potential for conflict to emerge between the systems where rights overlap and interpretations in different courts begin to diverge. From the perspective of EU law, where the interpretation of rights differs national courts are asked to renounce the constitutional scope of protection in favour of the scope defined by the European Court of Justice. This work presents a theory of supranational judicial authority to confront this problem, grounded in an ideal of judicial dialogue. It represents the first attempt to provide a thorough theoretical account of the value of judicial dialogue, and its potential for legitimating judicial decision-making at a supranational level. Combining theoretical rigour with attention to the practicalities of European human rights law, the book will be accessible to a broad readership of legal theorists, EU lawyers and judges involved in building inter-judicial dialogue.




Socio-economic Rights


Book Description

Drawing on a wide range of interdisciplinary resources, this scholarly work provides an in-depth and thorough analysis of the socio-economic rights jurisprudence of the newly democratic South Africa. The book explores how the judicial interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights can be more responsive to the conditions of systemic poverty and inequality characterising South African society. Based on meticulous research, the work marries legal analysis with perspectives from political philosophy and democratic theory.







The New Terrain of International Law


Book Description

A compelling new look at the role of today's international courts In 1989, when the Cold War ended, there were six permanent international courts. Today there are more than two dozen that have collectively issued over thirty-seven thousand binding legal rulings. The New Terrain of International Law charts the developments and trends in the creation and role of international courts, and explains how the delegation of authority to international judicial institutions influences global and domestic politics. The New Terrain of International Law presents an in-depth look at the scope and powers of international courts operating around the world. Focusing on dispute resolution, enforcement, administrative review, and constitutional review, Karen Alter argues that international courts alter politics by providing legal, symbolic, and leverage resources that shift the political balance in favor of domestic and international actors who prefer policies more consistent with international law objectives. International courts name violations of the law and perhaps specify remedies. Alter explains how this limited power--the power to speak the law--translates into political influence, and she considers eighteen case studies, showing how international courts change state behavior. The case studies, spanning issue areas and regions of the world, collectively elucidate the political factors that often intervene to limit whether or not international courts are invoked and whether international judges dare to demand significant changes in state practices.




International Courts and Tribunals


Book Description

Beginning about a century ago, but with a dramatic acceleration of the process in the final decades of the 1900s, international courts and tribunals have taken a prominent place in the enforcement of international law, the maintenance of international peace and security and the protection and promotion of human rights. This book addresses the great diversity of these institutions, their structures and legal frameworks and their contribution to the international rule of law.




Human Rights Norms in ‘Other' International Courts


Book Description

Examines the role and impact of human rights norms in international courts other than human rights courts




Adjudicating Refugee and Asylum Status


Book Description

In this book, legal, biomedical, psychosocial, and social science scholars and practitioners offer the first comparative account of the increasing dependence on expertise in the asylum and refugee status determination process. This volume presents a comprehensive study of the relevance of experts, as mediators of culture, who are called upon to corroborate, substantiate credibility, and serve as translators in the face of confusing legal standards that require proof of new forms and reasons for persecution around the globe. The authors provide insights into the evidentiary burdens on asylum seekers and the expanding role of expertise in the forms of country-conditions reports, biomedical and psychiatric evaluations, and the emerging field of forensic linguistic analysis in response to emerging forms of persecution, such as gender-based or sexuality-based persecution.




Adjudicating Climate Change


Book Description

Courts have emerged as a crucial battleground in efforts to regulate climate change. Over the past several years, tribunals at every level of government around the world have seen claims regarding greenhouse gas emissions and impacts. These cases rely on diverse legal theories, but all focus on government regulation of climate change or the actions of major corporate emitters. This book explores climate actions in state and national courts, as well as international tribunals, in order to explain their regulatory significance. It demonstrates the role that these cases play in broader debates over climate policy and argues that they serve as an important force in pressuring governments and emitters to address this crucial problem. As law firms and public interest organizations increasingly develop climate practice areas, the book serves as a crucial resource for practitioners, policymakers and academics.




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