This volume presents responses to the work of James Griffin, one of the most significant contributors to the contemporary debate over human rights. Leading moral and political philosophers engage with Griffin's views--according to which human rights are best understood as protections of our agency and personhood--and Griffin offers his own reply.

This book is designed to introduce law students, legal actors and human rights activists, particularly participants in human rights dialogues with China, to the process and reality of a newly confident China’s participation in the international human rights system, albeit with inherent challenges. From an international and comparative perspective, one of the key findings of the author's research is that progress towards human rights depends more on judges than on legislators. Chinese legislators have enacted a series of reforms in order to better protect human rights. Unfortunately, these reforms have not led to greater adherence to China’s international human rights obligations in practice. The reforms failed because they have generally been misunderstood by Chinese judges, who often have a limited understanding of international human rights norms. Specifically, this book will examine how judicial misunderstandings have blocked reforms in one specific area, the use of severe punishments, based on international human rights theory and case studies and data analyses. This examination has several purposes. The first is to suggest that China ratify the ICCPR as the next step for its substantive progress in human rights and as a good preparation for its re-applying to be a member of the UN Human Right Council in the future. The second is to explain how judges could be better educated in international human rights norms so as to greatly reduce the use of severe punishments and better comply with China's human rights obligations. The third is to demonstrate how the international community could better engage with China in a manner that is more conducive to human rights improvements. The author's ultimate goal is to enhance dialogue on human rights in China between judges and the Chinese government, between Chinese judges and their foreign counterparts and between China's government and the international community. Another significant aim of this book is to clarify the controversial question of what obligations China should undertake before its ratification of the ICCPR and to re-examine trends in its developing human rights policy after standing down from the Council in late 2012. The tortuous progress of China’s criminal law and criminal justice reforms has confirmed that Chinese judges need further instruction on how to apply severe punishments in a manner consistent with international standards. Judges should be encouraged to exercise more discretion when sentencing so that penalties reflect the intent of relevant domestic laws as well as the international human rights standards enumerated in the ICCPR. In order to better educate and train judges, this book contains introductory chapters that examine the severe punishments currently available to Chinese judges from an international human rights perspective. To illustrate how Chinese justice currently falls short of international norms, this paper also examines several cases that are considered to be indicative of China’s progress towards greater respect for human rights and the rule of law. These cases demonstrate that China still has a long way to go to achieve its goals, at least before abolishing the death penalty, forced labor and torture.

prospects of the High Commissioner proposal with careful scholarship and shrewd judgment. Mr. Clark wrote the first draft of this book under my supervision for the degree of Doctor of the Science of Law at Columbia Law School before returning to take up his career as a law teacher in his native New Zealand. I am delighted that his work, in this improved and updated version, is now being published. It fills a real need, since it is the first book on this important subject. On this occasion it might be appropriate to add a few comments on the history of the High Commissioner proposal. As Mr. Clark indicates, I had something to do with its "revival" in the United States Government during the closing months of the Kennedy Administration. A few details as to how this "revival" took place may perhaps be useful to students of international relations and international organization.

This book offers a stimulating introduction to the links between areas of global governance, human rights global economy and international law. By drawing on a range of diverse subject areas, Errol P. Mendes argues that the foundations of global governance, human rights and international law are undermined by a conflict or ‘tragic flaw’, where insistence on absolute conceptions of state sovereignty are pitted against universally accepted principles of justice and human rights resulting in destructive self-interest for both the state and the global community. The book explores how human rights and international law are applied in some of the critical institutions of global governance and in the operations of the global private sector, and how States, institutions and global civil society struggle to fight this ‘tragic flaw’. The book is brought up to date by considering developments in the role of the IMF, the World Bank, bilateral investment treaties; the likely failure of the Doha round of WTO negotiations; the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis; and the role of the International Criminal Court and the evolving Responsibility to Protect doctrine in international peace and security crises in the Middle East, Central and West Africa among other regions of the world. With its intensely interdisciplinary approach, this book motivates new thinking in the realm of global governance and international law, and promotes the development of new strategies for negotiating between conflicting leadership and organisational values within global institutions. The book will be of great interest and use to students and researchers of public international law, international relations and political science, business and human rights, global governance and international trade and economic law.

In terms of the South African Constitution of 1996 there is a general need for an introduction to comparative law and one that covers what is technically known as applied comparative law; more particularly applied comparative law that involves a study of the bills of rights in other countries.

The Open Access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Are unilateral economic sanctions legal under public international law? How do they relate to the existing international legal principles and norms? Can unilateral economic sanctions imposed to redress grave human rights violations be subjected to the same legal contestations as other unilateral sanctions? What potential contribution can the recently formulated doctrine of Common Concern of Humankind make by introducing substantive and procedural prerequisites to legitimise unilateral human rights sanctions? Unilateral Sanctions in International Law and the Enforcement of Human Rights by Iryna Bogdanova addresses these complex questions while taking account of the burgeoning state practice of employing unilateral economic sanctions.

This Liber Amicorum is published at the occasion of Judge Lucius Caflisch’s retirement from a distinguished teaching career at the Graduate Institute of International Studies of Geneva, where he served as Professor of International Law for more than three decades, and where he has also held the position of Director. It was written by his colleagues and friends, from the European Court of Human Rights, from universities all around the world, from the Swiss Foreign Affairs Ministry and many other national and international institutions. The Liber Amicorum Lucius Caflisch covers different fields in which Judge Caflisch has excelled in his various capacities, as scholar, representative of Switzerland in international conferences, legal adviser of the Swiss Foreign Affairs Ministry, counsel, registrar, arbitrator and judge. This collective work is divided into three main sections. The first section examines questions concerning human rights and international humanitarian law. The second section is devoted to the international law of spaces, including matters regarding the law of the sea, international waterways, Antarctica, and boundary and territorial issues. The third section addresses issues related to the peaceful settlement of disputes, both generally and with regard to any particular means of settlement. The contributions are in both English and French.

Human Rights in Transition combines rich theoretical reflections with practice-informed observations about human rights to consider the present, the recent and distant past, and the future of human rights.