Investigating minority and indigenous women’s rights in Muslim-majority states, this book critically examines the human rights regime within international law. Based on extensive and diverse ethnographic research on Amazigh women in Morocco, the book unpacks and challenges generally accepted notions of rights and equality. Significantly, and controversially, the book challenges the supposedly ‘emancipatory’ power vested in the human rights project; arguing that rights-based discourses are sites of contestation for different groups that use them to assert their agency in society. More specifically, it shows how the very conditions that make minority and indigenous women instrumental to the preservation of their culture may condemn them to a position of subalternity. In response, and engaging the notion and meaning of Islamic feminism, the book proposes that feminism should be interpreted and contextualised locally in order to be effective and inclusive, and so in order for the human rights project to fully realise its potential to empower the marginalised and make space for their voices to be heard. Providing a detailed, empirically based, analysis of rights in action, this book will be of relevance to scholars, students and practitioners in human rights policy and practice, in international law, minorities’ and indigenous peoples’ rights, gender studies, and Middle Eastern and North African Studies.

The issue of minority rights continues to occupy a sensitive position in international law. Historical as well as contemporary events show that the subject is also capable of engulfing the international community as a whole. The contention of the present study is that international law is in itself a difficult medium for providing adequate rights for minorities and for effectively safeguarding those rights. This volume analyses the weaknesses in the international protection of minority rights through a detailed examination of the practices and policies of Pakistan. Thought-provoking and original in its approach, this volume will prove to be of enormous value to international human rights lawyers and to scholars engaged in the study of minority rights in South-Asia and Pakistan.

In Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective, a group of leading scholars come together in a multidisciplinary collection to assess multiculturalism through an international comparative perspective. Multiculturalism today faces challenges like never before, through the concurrent rise of populism and white supremacist groups, and contemporary social movements mobilizing around alternative ideas of decolonization, anti-racism and national self-determination Taking these challenges head on, and with the backdrop that the term multiculturalism originated in Canada before going global, this collection of chapters presents a global comparative view of multiculturalism, through both empirical and normative perspectives, with the overarching aim of comprehending multiculturalism’s promise, limitations, contemporary challenges, trajectory and possible futures. Collectively, the chapters provide the basis for a critical assessment of multiculturalism’s first 50 years, as well as vital insight into whether multiculturalism is best equipped to meet the distinct challenges characterizing this juncture of the 21st century. With coverage including the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Africa and Asia, and thematic coverage of citizenship, religion, security, gender, Black Lives Matter and the post-pandemic order, Assessing Multiculturalism in Global Comparative Perspective presents a comprehensively global collection that is indispensable reading for scholars and students of diversity in the 21st century.

Papers originally presented at the World Summit on the Information Society, November 2005.

With international human rights under challenge, this book represents a comprehensive critique that adds a social policy perspective to recent political and legalistic analysis. Expert contributors draw on local and global examples to review constructs of universal rights and their impact on social policy and human welfare. With thorough analysis of their strengths, weaknesses and enforcement, it sets out their role in domestic and geopolitical affairs. Including a forward by Albie Sachs, this book presents an honest appraisal of both the concepts of international human rights and their realities. It will engage those with an interest in social policy, ethics, politics, international relations, civil society organisations and human rights-based approaches to campaigning and policy development.

Within the Middle East there are a wide range of minority groups outside the mainstream religious and ethnic culture. This book provides a detailed examination of their rights as minorities within this region, and their changing status throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The rights of minorities in the Middle East are subject to a range of legal frameworks, having developed in part from Islamic law, and in recent years subject to international human rights law and institutional frameworks. The book examines the context in which minority rights operate within this conflicted region, investigating how minorities engage with (or are excluded from) various sites of power and how state practice in dealing with minorities (often ostensibly based on Islamic authority) intersects with and informs modern constitutionalism and international law. The book identifies who exactly can be classed as a minority group, analysing in detail the different religious and ethnic minorities across the region. The book also pays special attention to the plight of minorities who are spread between various states, often as the result of conflict. It assesses the applicable domestic legislative instruments within the three countries investigated as case studies: Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, and highlights key domestic remedies that could serve as models for ensuring greater social cohesion and greater inclusion of minorities in the political life of these countries.

1993-1995.

The issue of minority rights is highly contested in both member and candidate states of the European Union. Compared with other policy areas, the Europeanization process in minority rights is much slower and more problematic. Turkey, though, differs from the majority of the member states by showing positive development, although admittedly it is still characterised by both accelerations and slowdowns. This book examines how minority protection, as a highly sensitive and controversial issue, is promoted or constrained in the EU’s neighbourhood, by focusing on the case of Turkey. It draws on current external Europeanization theories and suggests a rationalist model comprising both the role of the EU and also domestic factors. It integrates two models of external Europeanization provided by Schimmelfennig and Sedelmier (2005), i.e. the external incentives and lesson-drawing models, and the framework of the pull-and-push model of member state Europeanization by Börzel (2000), to derive a comprehensive model for external Europeanization. The book argues that the push by EU conditionality and the pull by domestic dissatisfaction are influential in promoting change. Without one or the other, domestic change remains incomplete, as it is either shallow or selective. Focusing on the Turkish case, the book enhances the theoretical understanding of external Europeanization by shifting focus away from EU conditionality to voluntarily driven change, and by providing a theoretical model that is applicable to other countries. It will therefore be a valuable resource for students and scholars studying minority rights and Turkish and European ethnic politics.

The relationship between Islamic law and international human rights law has been the subject of considerable, and heated, debate in recent years. The usual starting point has been to test one system by the standards of the other, asking is Islamic law 'compatible' with international human rights standards, or vice versa. This approach quickly ends in acrimony and accusations of misunderstanding. By overlaying one set of norms on another we overlook the deeply contextual nature of how legal rules operate in a society, and meaningful comparison and discussion is impossible. In this volume, leading experts in Islamic law and international human rights law attempt to deepen the understanding of human rights and Islam, paving the way for a more meaningful debate. Focusing on central areas of controversy, such as freedom of speech and religion, gender equality, and minority rights, the authors examine the contextual nature of how Islamic law and international human rights law are legitimately formed, interpreted, and applied within a community. They examine how these fundamental interests are recognized and protected within the law, and what restrictions are placed on the freedoms associated with them. By examining how each system recognizes and limits fundamental freedoms, this volume clears the ground for exploring the relationship between Islamic law and international human rights law on a sounder footing. In doing so it offers a challenging and distinctive contribution to the literature on the subject, and will be an invaluable reference for students, academics, and policy-makers engaged in the legal and religious debates surrounding Islam and the West.

'Basic Documents on Human Rights' provides a collection of key documents and covers all elements of the subject. It is an account of the most important instruments adopted by the UN, its agencies, regional organizations and other actors.