Legal Mobilization for Human Rights

Legal Mobilization for Human Rights

Author: Gráinne de Búrca

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-03-21

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 0192691767

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The traditionally top-down focus in human rights scholarship on laws, institutions, and courts has begun to turn towards a bottom-up focus on activists, advocacy groups, affected communities, and social movements. The essays collected in Legal Mobilization for Human Rights examine a range of issues including which groups claim rights, what they are mobilizing to protect, the goals they pursue, the forums they use, the obstacles they encounter, and the extent of their success or failure. Case studies reveal key themes such as: the importance of human rights to marginalized communities; how political and societal authoritarianism shapes opportunities for effective mobilization; the importance of the choice of forum for instigating change; the role intermediary actors such as NGOs play in innovating strategies to address challenges; the possibilities for subaltern mobilization to reshape human rights law; and the importance of supporting genuinely community-led legal mobilization.


Book Synopsis Legal Mobilization for Human Rights by : Gráinne de Búrca

Download or read book Legal Mobilization for Human Rights written by Gráinne de Búrca and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-21 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The traditionally top-down focus in human rights scholarship on laws, institutions, and courts has begun to turn towards a bottom-up focus on activists, advocacy groups, affected communities, and social movements. The essays collected in Legal Mobilization for Human Rights examine a range of issues including which groups claim rights, what they are mobilizing to protect, the goals they pursue, the forums they use, the obstacles they encounter, and the extent of their success or failure. Case studies reveal key themes such as: the importance of human rights to marginalized communities; how political and societal authoritarianism shapes opportunities for effective mobilization; the importance of the choice of forum for instigating change; the role intermediary actors such as NGOs play in innovating strategies to address challenges; the possibilities for subaltern mobilization to reshape human rights law; and the importance of supporting genuinely community-led legal mobilization.

Mobilizing for Human Rights

Mobilizing for Human Rights

Author: Beth A. Simmons

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-10-29

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 0521885108

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Beth Simmons demonstrates through a combination of statistical analysis and case studies that the ratification of treaties generally leads to better human rights practices. She argues that international human rights law should get more practical and rhetorical support from the international community as a supplement to broader efforts to address conflict, development, and democratization.


Book Synopsis Mobilizing for Human Rights by : Beth A. Simmons

Download or read book Mobilizing for Human Rights written by Beth A. Simmons and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-29 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beth Simmons demonstrates through a combination of statistical analysis and case studies that the ratification of treaties generally leads to better human rights practices. She argues that international human rights law should get more practical and rhetorical support from the international community as a supplement to broader efforts to address conflict, development, and democratization.

Making Rights a Reality?

Making Rights a Reality?

Author: Lisa Vanhala

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-12-20

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 113949712X

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Making Rights a Reality? explores the way in which disability activists in the United Kingdom and Canada have transformed their aspirations into legal claims in their quest for equality. It unpacks shifting conceptualizations of the political identity of disability and the role of a rights discourse in these dynamics. In doing so, it delves into the diffusion of disability rights among grassroots organizations and the traditional disability charities. The book draws on a wealth of primary sources including court records and campaign documents and encompassing interviews with more than sixty activists and legal experts. While showing that the disability rights movement has had a significant impact on equality jurisprudence in two countries, the book also demonstrates that the act of mobilizing rights can have consequences, both intended and unintended, for social movements themselves.


Book Synopsis Making Rights a Reality? by : Lisa Vanhala

Download or read book Making Rights a Reality? written by Lisa Vanhala and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-20 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Rights a Reality? explores the way in which disability activists in the United Kingdom and Canada have transformed their aspirations into legal claims in their quest for equality. It unpacks shifting conceptualizations of the political identity of disability and the role of a rights discourse in these dynamics. In doing so, it delves into the diffusion of disability rights among grassroots organizations and the traditional disability charities. The book draws on a wealth of primary sources including court records and campaign documents and encompassing interviews with more than sixty activists and legal experts. While showing that the disability rights movement has had a significant impact on equality jurisprudence in two countries, the book also demonstrates that the act of mobilizing rights can have consequences, both intended and unintended, for social movements themselves.

Reframing Human Rights in a Turbulent Era

Reframing Human Rights in a Turbulent Era

Author: Gráinne de Búrca

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 019264033X

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In recent years, human rights have come under fire, with the rise of political illiberalism and the coming to power of populist authoritarian leaders in many parts of the world who contest and dismiss the idea of human rights. More surprisingly, scholars and public intellectuals, from both the progressive and the conservative side of the political spectrum, have also been deeply critical, dismissing human rights as flawed, inadequate, hegemonic, or overreaching. While acknowledging some of the shortcomings, this book presents an experimentalist account of international human rights law and practice and argues that the human rights movement remains a powerful and appealing one with widespread traction in many parts of the globe. Using three case studies to illuminate the importance and vibrancy of the movement around the world, the book argues that its potency and legitimacy rest on three main pillars: First, it is based on a deeply-rooted and widely appealing moral discourse that integrates the three universal values of human dignity, human welfare, and human freedom. Second, these values and their elaboration in international legal instruments have gained widespread - even if thin - agreement among states worldwide. Third, human rights law and practice is highly dynamic, with human rights being activated, shaped, and given meaning and impact through the on-going mobilization of affected individuals and groups, and through their iterative engagement with multiple domestic and international institutions and processes. The book offers an account of how the human rights movement has helped to promote human rights and positive social change, and argues that the challenges of the current era provide good reasons to reform, innovate, and strengthen that movement, rather than to abandon it or to herald its demise.


Book Synopsis Reframing Human Rights in a Turbulent Era by : Gráinne de Búrca

Download or read book Reframing Human Rights in a Turbulent Era written by Gráinne de Búrca and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, human rights have come under fire, with the rise of political illiberalism and the coming to power of populist authoritarian leaders in many parts of the world who contest and dismiss the idea of human rights. More surprisingly, scholars and public intellectuals, from both the progressive and the conservative side of the political spectrum, have also been deeply critical, dismissing human rights as flawed, inadequate, hegemonic, or overreaching. While acknowledging some of the shortcomings, this book presents an experimentalist account of international human rights law and practice and argues that the human rights movement remains a powerful and appealing one with widespread traction in many parts of the globe. Using three case studies to illuminate the importance and vibrancy of the movement around the world, the book argues that its potency and legitimacy rest on three main pillars: First, it is based on a deeply-rooted and widely appealing moral discourse that integrates the three universal values of human dignity, human welfare, and human freedom. Second, these values and their elaboration in international legal instruments have gained widespread - even if thin - agreement among states worldwide. Third, human rights law and practice is highly dynamic, with human rights being activated, shaped, and given meaning and impact through the on-going mobilization of affected individuals and groups, and through their iterative engagement with multiple domestic and international institutions and processes. The book offers an account of how the human rights movement has helped to promote human rights and positive social change, and argues that the challenges of the current era provide good reasons to reform, innovate, and strengthen that movement, rather than to abandon it or to herald its demise.

Unleashing the Force of Law

Unleashing the Force of Law

Author: Devyani Prabhat

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-03-18

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1137455748

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Basic freedoms cannot be abandoned in times of conflict, or can they? Are basic freedoms routinely forsaken during times when there are national security concerns? These questions present different conundrums for the legal profession, which generally values basic freedoms but is also part of the architecture of emergency legal frameworks. Unleashing the Force of Law uses multi-jurisdiction empirical data and draws on cause lawyering, political lawyering and Bourdieusian juridical field literature to analyze the invocation of legal norms aimed at the protection of basic freedoms in times of national security tensions. It asks three main questions about the protection of basic freedoms. First, when do lawyers mobilize for the protection of basic freedoms? Second, in what kind of mobilization do they engage? Third, how do the strategies they adopt relate to the outcomes they achieve? Covering the last five decades, the book focusses on the 1980s and the Noughties through an analysis of legal work for two groups of independence seekers in the 1980s, namely, Republican (mostly Catholic) separatists in Northern Ireland and Puerto Rican separatists in the US, and on post-9/11 issues concerning basic freedoms in both countries


Book Synopsis Unleashing the Force of Law by : Devyani Prabhat

Download or read book Unleashing the Force of Law written by Devyani Prabhat and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-03-18 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basic freedoms cannot be abandoned in times of conflict, or can they? Are basic freedoms routinely forsaken during times when there are national security concerns? These questions present different conundrums for the legal profession, which generally values basic freedoms but is also part of the architecture of emergency legal frameworks. Unleashing the Force of Law uses multi-jurisdiction empirical data and draws on cause lawyering, political lawyering and Bourdieusian juridical field literature to analyze the invocation of legal norms aimed at the protection of basic freedoms in times of national security tensions. It asks three main questions about the protection of basic freedoms. First, when do lawyers mobilize for the protection of basic freedoms? Second, in what kind of mobilization do they engage? Third, how do the strategies they adopt relate to the outcomes they achieve? Covering the last five decades, the book focusses on the 1980s and the Noughties through an analysis of legal work for two groups of independence seekers in the 1980s, namely, Republican (mostly Catholic) separatists in Northern Ireland and Puerto Rican separatists in the US, and on post-9/11 issues concerning basic freedoms in both countries

To Fulfill These Rights

To Fulfill These Rights

Author: Amaka Okechukwu

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 023154474X

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In 2014 and 2015, students at dozens of colleges and universities held protests demanding increased representation of Black and Latino students and calling for a campus climate that was less hostile to students of color. Their activism recalled an earlier era: in the 1960s and 1970s, widespread campus protest by Black and Latino students contributed to the development of affirmative action and open admissions policies. Yet in the decades since, affirmative action has become a magnet for conservative backlash and in many cases has been completely dismantled. In To Fulfill These Rights, Amaka Okechukwu offers a historically informed sociological account of the struggles over affirmative action and open admissions in higher education. Through case studies of policy retrenchment at public universities, she documents the protracted—but not always successful—rollback of inclusive policies in the context of shifting race and class politics. Okechukwu explores how conservative political actors, liberal administrators and legislators, and radical students have defined, challenged, and transformed the racial logics of colorblindness and diversity through political struggle. She highlights the voices and actions of the students fighting policy shifts in on-the-ground accounts of mobilization and activism, alongside incisive scrutiny of conservative tactics and messaging. To Fulfill These Rights provides a new analysis of the politics of higher education, centering the changing understandings and practices of race and class in the United States. It is timely and important reading at a moment when a right-wing Department of Justice and Supreme Court threaten the end of affirmative action.


Book Synopsis To Fulfill These Rights by : Amaka Okechukwu

Download or read book To Fulfill These Rights written by Amaka Okechukwu and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2014 and 2015, students at dozens of colleges and universities held protests demanding increased representation of Black and Latino students and calling for a campus climate that was less hostile to students of color. Their activism recalled an earlier era: in the 1960s and 1970s, widespread campus protest by Black and Latino students contributed to the development of affirmative action and open admissions policies. Yet in the decades since, affirmative action has become a magnet for conservative backlash and in many cases has been completely dismantled. In To Fulfill These Rights, Amaka Okechukwu offers a historically informed sociological account of the struggles over affirmative action and open admissions in higher education. Through case studies of policy retrenchment at public universities, she documents the protracted—but not always successful—rollback of inclusive policies in the context of shifting race and class politics. Okechukwu explores how conservative political actors, liberal administrators and legislators, and radical students have defined, challenged, and transformed the racial logics of colorblindness and diversity through political struggle. She highlights the voices and actions of the students fighting policy shifts in on-the-ground accounts of mobilization and activism, alongside incisive scrutiny of conservative tactics and messaging. To Fulfill These Rights provides a new analysis of the politics of higher education, centering the changing understandings and practices of race and class in the United States. It is timely and important reading at a moment when a right-wing Department of Justice and Supreme Court threaten the end of affirmative action.

Rights at Work

Rights at Work

Author: Michael W. McCann

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994-07-15

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 9780226555713

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McCann explains how wage discrimination battles have raised public legal consciousness and helped reform activists mobilize working women in the pay equity movement over the past two decades. Rights at Work explores the political strategies in more than a dozen pay equity struggles since the late 1970s, including battles of state employees in Washington and Connecticut, as well as city employees in San Jose and Los Angeles. Relying on interviews with over 140 union and feminist activists, McCann shows that, even when the courts failed to correct wage discrimination, litigation and other forms of legal advocacy provided reformers with the legal discourse--the understanding of legal rights and their constraints--for defining and advancing their cause.


Book Synopsis Rights at Work by : Michael W. McCann

Download or read book Rights at Work written by Michael W. McCann and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-07-15 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McCann explains how wage discrimination battles have raised public legal consciousness and helped reform activists mobilize working women in the pay equity movement over the past two decades. Rights at Work explores the political strategies in more than a dozen pay equity struggles since the late 1970s, including battles of state employees in Washington and Connecticut, as well as city employees in San Jose and Los Angeles. Relying on interviews with over 140 union and feminist activists, McCann shows that, even when the courts failed to correct wage discrimination, litigation and other forms of legal advocacy provided reformers with the legal discourse--the understanding of legal rights and their constraints--for defining and advancing their cause.

Legal Mobilization Under Authoritarianism

Legal Mobilization Under Authoritarianism

Author: Waikeung Tam

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1107031990

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Using post-colonial Hong Kong as a case study, this book examines why and how legal mobilization arises in authoritarian regimes.


Book Synopsis Legal Mobilization Under Authoritarianism by : Waikeung Tam

Download or read book Legal Mobilization Under Authoritarianism written by Waikeung Tam and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using post-colonial Hong Kong as a case study, this book examines why and how legal mobilization arises in authoritarian regimes.

Not Enough

Not Enough

Author: Samuel Moyn

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2018-04-10

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 067498482X

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The age of human rights has been kindest to the rich. Even as state violations of political rights garnered unprecedented attention due to human rights campaigns, a commitment to material equality disappeared. In its place, market fundamentalism has emerged as the dominant force in national and global economies. In this provocative book, Samuel Moyn analyzes how and why we chose to make human rights our highest ideals while simultaneously neglecting the demands of a broader social and economic justice. In a pioneering history of rights stretching back to the Bible, Not Enough charts how twentieth-century welfare states, concerned about both abject poverty and soaring wealth, resolved to fulfill their citizens’ most basic needs without forgetting to contain how much the rich could tower over the rest. In the wake of two world wars and the collapse of empires, new states tried to take welfare beyond its original European and American homelands and went so far as to challenge inequality on a global scale. But their plans were foiled as a neoliberal faith in markets triumphed instead. Moyn places the career of the human rights movement in relation to this disturbing shift from the egalitarian politics of yesterday to the neoliberal globalization of today. Exploring why the rise of human rights has occurred alongside enduring and exploding inequality, and why activists came to seek remedies for indigence without challenging wealth, Not Enough calls for more ambitious ideals and movements to achieve a humane and equitable world.


Book Synopsis Not Enough by : Samuel Moyn

Download or read book Not Enough written by Samuel Moyn and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The age of human rights has been kindest to the rich. Even as state violations of political rights garnered unprecedented attention due to human rights campaigns, a commitment to material equality disappeared. In its place, market fundamentalism has emerged as the dominant force in national and global economies. In this provocative book, Samuel Moyn analyzes how and why we chose to make human rights our highest ideals while simultaneously neglecting the demands of a broader social and economic justice. In a pioneering history of rights stretching back to the Bible, Not Enough charts how twentieth-century welfare states, concerned about both abject poverty and soaring wealth, resolved to fulfill their citizens’ most basic needs without forgetting to contain how much the rich could tower over the rest. In the wake of two world wars and the collapse of empires, new states tried to take welfare beyond its original European and American homelands and went so far as to challenge inequality on a global scale. But their plans were foiled as a neoliberal faith in markets triumphed instead. Moyn places the career of the human rights movement in relation to this disturbing shift from the egalitarian politics of yesterday to the neoliberal globalization of today. Exploring why the rise of human rights has occurred alongside enduring and exploding inequality, and why activists came to seek remedies for indigence without challenging wealth, Not Enough calls for more ambitious ideals and movements to achieve a humane and equitable world.

European Court of Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights

Author: Dia Anagnostou

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2013-04-22

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0748670580

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Since the turn of the millennium, the European Court of Human Rights has been the transnational setting for a European-wide 'rights revolution'. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the European Convention of Human Rights and its highly acclaimed judicial tribunal in Strasbourg is the extensive obligations of the contracting states to give observable effect to its judgments. Dia Anagnostou explores the domestic execution of the European Court of Human Rights' judgments and dissects the variable patterns of implementation within and across states. She relates how marginalised individuals, civil society and minority actors strategically take recourse in the Strasbourg Court to challenge state laws, policies and practices. These bottom-up dynamics influencing the domestic implementation of human rights have been little explored in the scholarly literature until now. By adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, Anagnostou goes beyond the existing studies--mainly legal and descriptive--and contributes to the flourishing scholarship on human rights, courts and legal processes, and their consequences for national politics.


Book Synopsis European Court of Human Rights by : Dia Anagnostou

Download or read book European Court of Human Rights written by Dia Anagnostou and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the turn of the millennium, the European Court of Human Rights has been the transnational setting for a European-wide 'rights revolution'. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the European Convention of Human Rights and its highly acclaimed judicial tribunal in Strasbourg is the extensive obligations of the contracting states to give observable effect to its judgments. Dia Anagnostou explores the domestic execution of the European Court of Human Rights' judgments and dissects the variable patterns of implementation within and across states. She relates how marginalised individuals, civil society and minority actors strategically take recourse in the Strasbourg Court to challenge state laws, policies and practices. These bottom-up dynamics influencing the domestic implementation of human rights have been little explored in the scholarly literature until now. By adopting an inter-disciplinary perspective, Anagnostou goes beyond the existing studies--mainly legal and descriptive--and contributes to the flourishing scholarship on human rights, courts and legal processes, and their consequences for national politics.