What practical impact does the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law have? This collection of essays explores human rights in domestic legal systems. The enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1998, ushering the European Convention on Human Rights fully into UK law, represented a landmark in the UK constitutional order. Other European states similarly have elevated the status of human rights in their domestic legal systems. However, whilst much has been written about doctrinal legal developments, little is yet known about the empirical effects of bringing rights home. This collection of essays, written by a range of distinguished socio-legal scholars, seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge. The essays, presenting new empirical research, begin their enquiry where many studies in human rights finish. The contributors do not stop at the recognition of international law and norms by states, but penetrate the internal workings of domestic legal systems to see the law in action - - as it is developed, contested, manipulated, or even ignored by actors such as judges, lawyers, civil servants, interest groups, and others. This distinctly socio-legal approach offers a unique contribution to the literature on human rights, exploring human rights law-in-action in developed countries. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of looking beyond grand generalities and the hopes of international human rights law in order to understand the impact of the global human rights movement.

Under the Human Rights Act, British courts are for the first time empowered to review primary legislation for compliance with a codified set of fundamental rights. In this book, Aileen Kavanagh argues that the HRA gives judges strong powers of constitutional review, similar to those exercised by the courts under an entrenched Bill of Rights. The aim of the book is to subject the leading case-law under the HRA to critical scrutiny, whilst remaining sensitive to the deeper constitutional, political and theoretical questions which underpin it. Such questions include the idea of judicial deference, the constitutional status of the HRA, the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and the constitutional division of labour between Parliament and the courts. The book closes with a sustained defence of the legitimacy of constitutional review in a democracy, thus providing a powerful rejoinder to those who are sceptical about judicial power under the HRA.

Filling a need for a case and materials book on constitutional and administrative law, this textbook reflects the latest thinking particularly in relation to the European Communities.

Fresh look at Kurdistan Iraq today, including the role of central government and international forces, and the region's political and economic future.