Completely revised and updated to bring it up to date with recent events, this popular textbook incorporates a wide range of carefully edited materials from both primary and secondary sources.

This volume offers snapshots of how rights are debated and employed in public discourse to reshape legal and political relations at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It explores how rights are used to challenge the state of affairs by individuals and groups who seek justice, and the strategies devised to defy the existing rights by those who wish to recast the social and political order. This volume discusses rights, firstly, in relation to actual events and issues faced by policy-makers, courts, international agencies, or ordinary people. These range from the demands of minority groups living in the West to freely practice their culture and/or religion, to the threat of terrorism, the regulation of asylum rights, the investor's rights to disclosure and the rights of artists to freedom of expression. Secondly, rights discourse is examined in relation to attempts to redefine the form and content of rights, for example, by banning the right to wear religious symbols in public institutions or detaining terrorism suspects without trial. Thirdly, rights discourse is explored in connection with the attempts to develop new notions of rights, such as 'human security', which can more effectively respond to the challenges of late modern societies. Finally, the statuses of rights in sociological theory and socio-legal research are briefly discussed and analysed.

This volume analyses the prospects and challenges of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples' Rights in context. The book is for all readers interested in African institutions and contemporary global challenges of peace, security, human rights, and international law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

English summary: Energy is the driving force of human development and economic growth. The ceaseless demand for energy resources has triggered the development of extraction projects around the world. This, in turn, has exerted a significant pressure on natural resources as well as on the environment. Since the performance of human rights depends on the environment and on access to natural resources, this Study aims to show the extent to which the negative environmental impact arising from extraction operations prevents the effective realization of human rights. The analysis of substantive and procedural human rights in the light of the case law of international human rights courts provides all stakeholders involved in an energy extraction project with the tools and mechanisms to prevent environmental damage and to ensure the protection of human rights. German description: Energie ist ein entscheidender Faktor fur das Wirtschaftswachstum. Die unaufhorliche Nachfrage nach Energieressourcen hat die Entwicklung von Forderprojekten in der ganzen Welt ausgelost. Dies wiederum hat sowohl einen erheblichen Druck auf die naturlichen Quellen als auch auf die Umwelt ausgeubt. Da die effektive Verwirklichung der Menschenrechte von einer sauberen und gesunden Umwelt abhangt, bezweckt diese Arbeit anhand unterschiedlicher Beispiele zu belegen, dass die Energierohstoffgewinnung sich negativ auf wichtige okologische Voraussetzungen fur die effektive Ausubung der Menschenrechte auswirkt. Im Lichte der Rechtsprechung internationaler Menschenrechtsgerichte zeigt diese Arbeit, dass die Gerichte auf Umweltgrundsatze und -normen zuruckgegriffen haben, um Umweltschaden zu verhindern und den Schutz der Menschenrechte zu gewahrleisten.

Property as a human rights concern is manifested through its incorporation in international instruments and as a subject of the law through property-related cases considered by international human rights organs. Yet, for the most part, the relationship between property and human rights has been discussed in rather superficial terms, lacking a clear substantive connection or common language. That said, the currents of globalisation have witnessed a new era of interrelation between these two areas of the law, including the emergence of international intellectual property law and the recognition of indigenous claims, which, in fundamental ways, speak to an engagement with human rights law. This collection starts the conversation between human rights lawyers and property lawyers and explores analytical approaches to the increasing relationship between property and human rights in a global context. The chapters engage with key theoretical and policy debates and range across three main themes: The re-evaluation of the public/private divide in the law; the tensions between the market and social justice in development and the balance between the rights of individuals and those of communities. The chapters adopt a global, comparative perspective and engage in case studies from countries including India, Philippines, Brazil, the United States, the United Kingdom and includes various regions of Africa and Europe.

What do we mean when we talk about rights in relation to health? Where does the language of health rights come from, and what are the implications of using such a discourse? During the last 20 years there have been an increasing number of initiatives and efforts – for instance in relation to HIV/AIDS – which draw on the language, institutions and procedures of human rights in the field of global health. This book explores the historical, cultural and social context of public health activists’ increasing use of rights discourse and examines the problems it can entail in practice. Structured around three interlinked themes, this book begins by looking at what health as a right means for our understandings of citizenship and political subjectivities. It then goes on to look at how and why some health problems came to be framed as human rights issues. The final part of the book investigates what happens when health rights are put into practice – how these are implemented, realised, cited, ignored and resisted. Assembling Health Rights in Global Context provides an in-depth discussion of the historical, anthropological, social and political context of rights in health and develops much needed critical perspectives on the human rights approach to global health. It will be of interest to scholars of public health and human rights within health care as well as sociology and anthropology.

Due to the growing impact of China on world affairs how Chinese history has affected its current development in the field of human rights and law is generating great interest in the Western world. The result of a decade-long study of rights thinking in both China and the Western world, this book offers a comprehensive examination of the theories and practice of rights in the context of Chinese culture and social development. From the perspective of civil philosophy, the author discusses the problems of culture, morality, society and politics in modern China. The book also provides a unique contribution to an assessment of the impact of Western philosophical thought on contemporary Chinese rights and political thinking. This unique volume deals with both history and today, China and the West, in the field of rights thinking and practice.

This book analyzes William of Ockham's early theory of property rights alongside those of his fellow dissident Franciscans, paying careful attention to each friar's use of Roman and civil law, which provided the conceptual building blocks of the poverty controversy.

William of Ockham's (ca. 1288-1347) Opus nonaginta dierum has long been of interest to historians for his theory of rights. Yet the results of this interest has been uneven because most studies do not take sufficient account of the defences of Franciscan poverty already articulated by his fellow Franciscans, Bonagratia of Bergamo, Michael of Cesena, and Francis of Marchia. This book therefore presents and analyzes Ockham's account of property rights alongside those of his confreres. This contextualization of Ockham’s theory corrects many misconceptions about his theory of property, natural law, and natural rights, and therefore also provides a new foundation for studies of his political oeuvre, intellectual development, and significance as a political theorist.