Freedom of Association


Book Description

The seminar on 'Freedom of Association' was held in Reykjavik (Iceland) from 26 to 28 August 1993. It was organised by the Directorate of Human Rights of the Council of Europe in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Iceland, and dealt with the following four themes: freedom of association and political democracy; freedom of association and civil society; freedom of association and social democracy; freedom to form and join or not to join trade unions. Written communications were presented on the following subjects: case law of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom of association and the freedom of associations, freedom of association of immigrants in Europe, freedom of association and public service and freedom of association, labour law and the needs of a democratic society. About one hundred personalities took part: representatives of governments of member States, representatives of non-governmental organisations, members of the European Commission and Court of Human Rights, professors and other interested persons from Central, Western and Eastern Europe competent in the fields covered by the themes of the Seminar. This publication contains the Proceedings of the Seminar: the official speeches made at the opening ceremony, the reports and written communications, the interventions, the final report and the list of participants. Le Séminaire sur la 'Liberté d'association' a eu lieu à Reykjavik (Islande) du 26 au 28 août 1993. Il a été organisé par la Direction des Droits de l'Homme du Conseil de l'Europe en collaboration avec le Ministère de la Justice de l'Islande. Les travaux du Séminaire de Reykjavik ont été axés sur les quatre thèmes suivants: liberté d'association et démocratie politique; liberté des associations et société civile; liberté d'association et démocratie sociale; liberté de fonder avec d'autres des syndicats et de s'y affilier. Des communications écrites ont été présentées sur les questions suivantes: jurisprudence de l'Article 11 de la Convention européenne des Droits de l'Homme, liberté d'association et libertés des associations, liberté d'association des immigrés en Europe, liberté d'association et fonction publique et liberté d'association, droit du travail et les besoins d'une société démocratique. Une centaine de personnalités y ont participé: représentants de gouvernements des pays membres et d'organisations non gouvernementales, membres de la Commission et de la Cour européennes des Droits de l'Homme, personnalités du monde académique et autres personnalités de l'Europe occidentale, centrale et orientale compétentes dans les secteurs concernés par les thèmes du Séminaire. La présente publication contient les actes du Séminaire: les allocutions officielles faites lors de la cérémonie d'ouverture, les rapports et communications écrites présentés, les interventions, le rapport final et la liste des participants.




Why Associations Matter


Book Description

First Amendment rights are hailed as the hallmark of the US constitutional system, protecting religious liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association. But among these rights, freedom of association holds a tenuous position, as demonstrated in the 2010 Supreme Court ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which upheld a public university’s policy requiring groups seeking official recognition to accept all students regardless of their status or beliefs. This demotion of freedom of association has broad ramifications for the constitutional status of voluntary associations in civil society, Luke C. Sheahan suggests. His book offers a cogent explanation of how this came about, why it matters, and what might be done about it. Sheahan’s argument centers upon what he calls the “First Amendment Dichotomy” in the Court’s theoretical framework: an understanding of the state and the individual as the two analytically exclusive units of constitutional analysis. Why Associations Matter traces this dichotomy through Supreme Court jurisprudence culminating in Martinez, revealing a pattern of free association treated only as an individual right of expressive association derived from the Speech Clause alone. Sheahan then draws on the political sociology of Robert Nisbet to make a case for recognizing the social importance of associations and institutions that cannot be reduced to their individual members or subsumed into the state for purposes of constitutional analysis. Translating the sociological qualities of associations into jurisprudential categories, Why Associations Matter provides practical advice for protecting freedom of association through the judiciary and the legislature—and guaranteeing this fundamental right its proper place in American society.




Freedom of Association


Book Description

This publication contains the Proceedings of the Seminar




Freedom of Association


Book Description

From colonial times to the information age, an exhaustive survey of one of America's most contentious constitutional rights. Freedom of Association: Rights and Liberties under the Law chronicles the evolution of a right derived from but not granted in the First Amendment—freedom of association. An opening analysis of the Supreme Court's ruling against a gay adult member of the Boy Scouts of America illustrates the range and complexity of this issue. Historical discussions of colonial America, including the British Parliament's efforts to suppress political associations, set the stage for a careful scrutiny of the political and legislative activities of the 1950s and 1960s when the Supreme Court established freedom of association as a constitutionally protected right. A concluding chapter delves into the contemporary issues of antidiscriminatory and campaign finance laws and explores the ever-present tension between liberty—freedom from the state—and equality—protection by the state.




Freedom of Association


Book Description

Since its establishment 55 years ago, the Freedom of Association Committee has dealt with more than 2,500 complaints of infringement of freedom of association submitted to it either by governments or by organisations of employers or workers. The fifth revised edition of this publication contains the decisions and principles of the Committee in a concise form for easy reference, covering most aspects of freedom of association and the protection of trade union rights.




Liberty's Refuge


Book Description

This original and provocative book looks at an important constitutional freedom that today is largely forgotten: the right of assembly. While this right lay at the heart of some of the most important social movements in American history—abolitionism, women's suffrage, the labor and civil rights movements—courts now prefer to speak about the freedoms of association and speech. But the right of “expressive association' undermines protections for groups whose purposes are demonstrable not by speech or expression but through ways of being. John D. Inazu demonstrates that the forgetting of assembly and the embrace of association lose sight of important dimensions of our constitutional tradition.













The Protection of Minorities


Book Description

This publication aims to make the Venice Commission's work in the field of protection of minorities more available to the public. It includes, on the one hand, the Proposal for a European Convention on the protection of minorities, as a reply to the heartfelt need for protection of minorities at the European level. The proposal and its explanatory report appear in the first chapter of the publication. This publication includes, in addition, firstly the report on the protection of minorities at domestic law level which was drawn up within the framework of the Venice Commission and secondly the report concerning the special protection of which minorities can take advantage in States with a Federal or Regional structure. The report in question was established on the basis of replies provided by representatives of several European and non-European States to a questionnaire drawn up by the Commission; the questionnaire, together with the replies, appears in an Appendix to the report. Perusal of the replies given by representatives of different States to the same question allows for a rapid appraisal of the solutions adopted in national laws to identical problems of protection of minorities. The European Commission for Democracy through Law considers the question of the protection of minorities to be one of the most important fields of its activity. (Adapted from.