An essential overview of the comparative study of human rights law. This book will introduce students, academics, and legal practitioners to the aims and methods of approaching human rights from a comparative perspective.

This book is intended to provide students with some understanding of the variety of approaches to human rights in a selection of the world's legal systems. By including cases from both the United States and the European human rights systems, the book should enable students to consider differences between legal systems deriving from a more or less common tradition. Japanese cases offer a view of the legal system of a developed, non-Western country, and Indian cases give an idea of the approach taken by a developing country with a legal system greatly influenced by that of a former colonial power but also by its own tradition. The book includes a brief introduction intended to give the student some understanding of the structures of the European, Japanese, and Indian systems. The topics addressed in this book focus on the most basic personal rights found in legal systems: the extent to which citizens may criticize the government, the right to form groups for whatever purposes members may deem appropriate, and governmental control of religion are all fundamental measures of the scope of personal freedom individuals enjoy. Students accustomed to American approaches to these issues will probably be surprised at the differences in assumptions in different systems regarding, for example, the circumstances in which human rights concepts do, or do not, limit the an individual's ability to obtain damages for an alleged defamation. This book can be a useful element in any course aimed at acquainting students with the range of disagreement among different societies as to just what the idea of "rights" means in practice. This book is part of the Comparative Law Series, edited by Michael L. Corrado, Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law, UNC School of Law.

This fully revised and updated second edition of The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law provides a wide-ranging and diverse critical survey of comparative law at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It summarizes and evaluates a discipline that is time-honoured but not easily understood in all its dimensions. In the current era of globalization, this discipline is more relevant than ever, both on the academic and on the practical level. The Handbook is divided into three main sections. Section I surveys how comparative law has developed and where it stands today in various parts of the world. This includes not only traditional model jurisdictions, such as France, Germany, and the United States, but also other regions like Eastern Europe, East Asia, and Latin America. Section II then discusses the major approaches to comparative law - its methods, goals, and its relationship with other fields, such as legal history, economics, and linguistics. Finally, section III deals with the status of comparative studies in over a dozen subject matter areas, including the major categories of private, economic, public, and criminal law. The Handbook contains forty-eight chapters written by experts from around the world. The aim of each chapter is to provide an accessible, original, and critical account of the current state of comparative law in its respective area which will help to shape the agenda in the years to come. Each chapter also includes a short bibliography referencing the definitive works in the field.

Explains that international law is not a monolith but can encompass on-going contestation, in which states set forth competing interpretations Maps and explains the cross-country differences in international legal norms in various fields of international law and their application and interpretation in different geographic regions Organized into three broad thematic sections of conceptual matters, domestic institutions and comparative international law, and comparing approaches across issue-areas Chapters authored by contributors who include top international law and comparative law scholars all from diverse backgrounds, experience, and perspectives.

Provides a country-by-country analysis of the approach to human rights as well as examination of such topics as torture, slavery asylum, genocide, freedom of the press, and the right to education.