Showing papers on "International human rights law published in 1995"

Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights

Abstract: The increasingly multicultural fabric of modern societies has given rise to many new issues and conflicts, as ethnic and national minorities demand recognition and support for their cultural identity. This book presents a new conception of the rights and status of minority cultures. It argues that certain sorts of 'collective rights' for minority cultures are consistent with liberal democratic principles, and that standard liberal objections to recognizing such rights on grounds of individual freedom, social justice, and national unity, can be answered. However, Professor Kymlicka emphasises that no single formula can be applied to all groups and that the needs and aspirations of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous peoples and national minorities. The book discusses issues such as language rights, group representation, religious education, federalism, and secession - issues which are central to understanding multicultural politics, but which have been surprisingly neglected in contemporary liberal theory.

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women

Abstract: (1995). Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. South African Journal on Human Rights: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 421-437.

Rights across Borders: Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship

Abstract: In Rights across Borders, political sociologist David Jacobson argues that transnational migrations have affected ideas of citizenship and the state since World War II. Jacobson shows how citizenship has been increasingly devalued as governments extend rights to foreign populations and how, in turn, international human rights law has overshadowed traditional definitions of sovereignty. Examining illegal immigration in the United States and migrant and foreign populations in Western Europe, with a special focus on Germany and France, Jacobson shows how the differing political cultures of these countries-the ethnic basis of citizenship in Germany versus its political basis in the United States, for instance-have shaped both domestic and international politics. "This short but well-written book addresses a neglected aspect of the contemporary decline of the nation-state. It studies in depth the criteria by which France, Germany, and the United States distinguish between citizen and alien, from the political-territorial definition of the French to the ethno-cultural one of the Germans."-Francis Fukuyama, Foreign Affairs "Jacobson challenges scholars to rethink their views of the state. Current theories of political sociology and international relations are rooted in conceptions that, he feels, are losing their relevance and bite ...A thought-provoking book."-Lawrence M. Friedman, Law and Politics Book Review "Few people discussing national and cultural identity or citizenship have looked at the legal ramifications of immigration. David Jacobson fills this gap in his important book."-Jeff Spinner-Halev, American Political Science Review "A compelling explanation of the intersection between transnational migration and human rights norms. It will be of interest to scholars of both international migration and human rights as well as a general reading audience interested in questions regarding immigration and citizenship"-Debra DeLaet, Perspectives on Political Science

Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in International Migration

Abstract: Part I Membership: territorial boundaries attributed membership foundational consent consent in entry consent in exit membership decisions and associations collective membership and self-determination. Part II Rights: entitlement and liberties special and general rights scarcity and alienability of rights collective rights rights and obligations migration rights.

Linguistic Human Rights: Overcoming Linguistic Discrimination.

Abstract: Only a few hundred of the world's 6,000-7,000 languages have any kind of official status, and it is only speakers of official languages (speakers of dominant majority languages) who enjoy all linguistic human rights. As many of the collected papers in this book document, most linguistic minorities are deprived of these rights. This book describes what linguistic human rights are, who has and who does not have them and why, and suggests which linguistic rights should be regarded as basic human rights. Linguistic Human Rights introduces a new area, combining sociolinguistics, educational, and minority concerns with human rights. Discrimination against language minorities is widespread, despite national and international law prohibiting this. The book analyzes language rights in many countries worldwide, including North and Latin America, several European states, the former USSR, India, Kurdistan, Australia and New Zealand.

The Politics of Property Rights

Abstract: The study of land tenure polarizes the field of development. Neoclassical scholars lobby for a move toward private property rights, while other economists and historians defend the maintenance of customary land tenure. I argue that the development scholars' focus on the structure of property rights obscures a more fundamental problem of land reform—that of enforcement. Property rights will not inspire individual investment and economic growth unless political institutions give the ruler of a local community or nation-state sufficient coercive authority to silence those who advocate an alternative, more distributionally favorable property rights system. At the same time, political institutions must force the ruler to establish a credible commitment to that property rights system. I illustrate this theoretical argument through an analysis of property rights institutions in Akyem Abuakwa, a traditional state in colonial Ghana.

Explaining International Human Rights Regimes: Liberal Theory and Western Europe

Abstract: Under what conditions are effective international regimes for the promotion of human rights likely to emerge? Case studies of European institutions — the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe — confirm hypotheses more consistent with Liberal theories of international relations than their Institutionalist or Realist counterparts. The uniquely successful mechanisms of the European regime, in particular its fine-grained system of individual petition and supranational judicial review, function not by external sanctions or reciprocity, but by `shaming' and `coopting' domestic law-makers, judges and citizens, who pressure governments from within for compliance. The evolution of these mechanisms presupposes the existence of an autonomous independent civil society and robust domestic legal institutions and, even in the relatively propitious circumstances of postwar Europe, required several generations to evolve. Such institutions appea...

Women's Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives

Abstract: This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and reproductive rights.

The Banjul Charter and the African Cultural Fingerprint: An Evaluation of the Language of Duties

Abstract: This article questions the universality of the human rights corpus and argues that a human rights doctrine that is legitimate across cultures and traditions is not possible without the participation of the wider globe Its purpose is to imagine and reconfigure a rights regime that could achieve legitimacy in Africa It argues that African cultures and conceptions of man have a lot to contribute to the exercise of the reconstruction of the human rights corpus The piece focuses attention on particular African ideas and conceptions of society, morality, and human ethos that would enrich the human rights regime and make it more legitimate in Africa

Non-Governmental Organizations and Their Influence on International Society

Abstract: International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have proliferated in the latter half of the 20th century. Many of these transnational actors are new to world politics, a province that historically has been dominated by states. In some issue areas, NGOs have acquired significant authority in the eyes of transnational actors. A prime example is the human rights group, Amnesty International, which began in 1961 with letter-writing efforts to free individuals imprisoned for the nonviolent expression of opinion. Since then, and especially within the past two decades, Amnesty International has developed the capacity to research, report and analyze global patterns of human rights violations, empowering it to be a source of record in U.N. sessions and national halls of power. Moreover, Amnesty International is only one of a network of international and national NGOs active in human rights. Others include the International Commission of Jurists, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, all of which attempt to influence governments by applying general human rights principles to particular situations. Similarly, a growing network of environmental NGOs works to hold governments accountable to international environmental standards. Other NGOs, such as OXFAM, establish economic development projects and administer economic and humanitarian aid with funding from the pockets of private contributors. What these NGO activities have in common is, while they often challenge governments and sometimes complement government-provided services, they nearly always act in counterpoint with governmental actors. NGO operations historically have been dependent upon interstate organizations for the provision of channels of action. However, partly due to the limitations on participation and expression inherent when international arenas are controlled fundamentally by states, these NGOs have also devised new channels of action that allow them more freedom. International NGOs not only cross formal national boundaries - they also have created a direct and independent form of non-governmental diplomacy through networks of their own.(2) The economic, informational and intellectual resources of NGOs have garnered them enough expertise and influence to assume authority in matters that, traditionally, have been solely within the purview of state administration and responsibility. Further, many NGOs claim a certain legitimacy for their causes by virtue of popular representation. Whether or not the influence and independent authority claimed by NGOs by virtue of their expertise and mandate of popular sovereignty amount to an erosion of formal state sovereignty is both a theoretical and empirical question. While I will not discuss the conceptual history of sovereignty here, for purposes of this essay it is important to recognize, as has been noted recently, that state practices only murkily reflect formal, diplomatic definitions of sovereignty, and sovereignty is often highly conditional and socially determined in practice.(3) Similarly, the relative influence of NGOs is not a static phenomenon, and their impact on state policies has changed and is changing with time. To return to human rights, NGOs have been involved at crucial junctures in strengthening the expectation that states be held accountable for human rights practices in the 20th century, as international and regional human rights norms have been elaborated in response to problematic country cases, and states have been encouraged to create new intergovernmental reporting and monitoring procedures at the formal level.(4) These changes have arisen not so much from enthusiastic state participation as from international popular and diplomatic pressure exerted on governments. Human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International, have become skilled at mounting such pressure by feeding information into pertinent public and governmental channels for discussion, on the one hand, and distributing and promoting new human rights instruments, on the other. …

Refugee women and the imperative of categories

Abstract: It is interesting to speculate about why refugee law seems more amenable than the international human rights regime to acting on the insight that states are as accountable for a failure to protect women from "private" violations as they are for the "public" violations that states themselves commit Perhaps it is because states owe no obligations to nationals of other countries under international human rights law There is no incentive to take an active interest in the human rights of women elsewhere and as MacKinnon points out a certain self-interest in not doing so In the refugee context states party to the Convention are obliged to assess the conduct of other states in the course of resolving individual cases brought before their tribunals Moreover a state hearing a refugee claim is bound under international refugee law not to return a claimant to a country where she may be persecuted In effect states owe the claimant a legal obligation to judge the actions of the state from which she has fled (excerpt)

What Future for Economic and Social Rights

Abstract: It is a commonplace of discussions about human rights that economic and social rights, like the poor themselves, occupy a distinctly second class status.’ When human rights are mentioned, it is typically civil and political rights that spring to mind. When Western governments include the promotion of human rights in their foreign policy goals, it is the freedoms of expression and political association, the right to due process and the protection from state harassment that principally concern them rather than, say, access to the means of livelihood or to basic health care. And when the role of human rights NGOs is discussed, it is the work of organizations such as Amnesty International or civil liberties associations that we tend to think of. By the same token, our paradigm for a human rights violation is state-sponsored torture or ‘disappearance’ rather than, say, childhood death through malnutrition or preventable disease. This disparity between the two sets of rights was acknowledged by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights itself, in its statement to the Vienna World Conference of 1993:

Human Rights: A Feminist Perspective

Abstract: This paper explores the ways in which human rights might be understood if womens experience were the foundation for the theorizing and enforcement. The argument is not that there is but one feminist perspective--indeed the title suggests that there might be many. Rather it is argued that if one works from the life experiences most common to women the principles of human rights that would emerge would not necessarily reflect the universe of such rights as they are commonly understood by liberal nation states. While the prototypic "human rights" case involves the individual political activist imprisoned for the expression of his views or political organizing forms of oppression that do not fit the Bill of Rights model of liberty are rarely recognized in international understandings or national asylum laws. These forms would include inter alia issues related to marriage procreation labor property ownership sexual repression and other manifestations of unequal citizenship that are routinely viewed as private nongovernmental and reflective of cultural difference. (authors)

Human Rights of Women National and International Perspectives.

Abstract: In recent years the rights of women have received special attention in discourses dealing with human rights internationally. The notion of human rights as proclaimed by the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948) implies that all human beings, irrespective of gender, class, race, religion, and culture, are equal. In practice, however, national laws in many countries as well as international human rights laws have androcentric world views. Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives presents a feminist critique of this world view and constitutes a definitive source book of diverse experiences women face cross-culturally in their quest to claim rights. The 22 essays in this book were originally presented at the Women's International Human Rights meetings held at the University of Toronto from August 31 to September 2, 1992, and reflect the various experiences of its contributors, who are mostly members of the legal profession from Africa, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Europe. The book is aimed at providing multiple perspectives of women's human rights, promoting legal strategies to protect women's rights and making international human rights laws more effective for women. In her introduction, editor Rebecca J. Cook identifies three feminist approaches -- liberal feminism, cultural feminism, and radical feminism -- which recharacterize women's human rights and take into account specific socio-cultural contexts. Most of the essays, however, are slanted towards a liberal feminist approach. Cook also raises a number of critical issues in rights discourse, including various implications for women in the North and the South and for the public/private dichotomy. Like many contributors in the volume, Cook contends that it is the state that should provide effective protection against violation of women's human rights, irrespective of public/private contexts. The book is divided into five parts. Part I provides a broad overview of the content, based on the general issues addressed and consensus reached at the meetings. The essays in Part II entitled "Challenges" raise a number of questions that challenge rights discourse in many societies. For example, Radhika Coomaraswamy, citing a number of well publicized case studies in South Asia, raises a fundamental feminist issue -- how "ethnic identity" and "cultural practices" violate women's fundamental human rights, such as the right to live in dignity. In Part III, entitled "International and Regional Approaches," Abdullahi An-Na'im points out that in some countries, the source of rights discourse is religion and women's organizations are working within the established religious framework. This leads to another key question: do feminists need to recognize epistemological, cultural, ethnic, and regional differences to deal with women's fundamental human rights? …

Women and Human Rights

Abstract: This top-quality title is the latest in the highly successful WOMEN AND WORLD DEVELOPMENT series, sales of which have already passed the 20,000 mark. It looks at how the conventional view of women's rights as different and separate from human rights has impeded action to uphold their fundamental freedoms as human beings. Most violations of women's rights in practice remain unchallenged. The book describes the lack of attention to women's human rights and civil liberties at all levels, outlines what has been done so far to articulate and defend them, and proposes a plan of action.

Ethnicity and Human Rights in Canada

Abstract: Extensively revised and updated, the second edition of Ethnicity and Human Rights in Canada presents new materials on legal protection for human rights in Canada's post-Charter era.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Abstract: In the present report, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights describes the human rights situation in Colombia with regard to democracy, security, development, civic participation and peace in 2018, and highlights some of the activities of the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) in the country. In particular, the High Commissioner stresses the importance of guaranteeing human rights as a pathway to achieving sustainable and lasting peace. The report also contains an assessment by OHCHR of the second year of implementation of the human rights aspects of the peace agreement signed between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP).

Between irua and "female genital mutilation" : feminist human rights discourse and the cultural divide.

Abstract: This 1995 article surveyed western, indigenous, and cross-cultural feminist discourse on the status of "female genital mutilation" (FGM)/"female genital cutting" (FGC) under international human rights law. These harmful traditional practices, (referred to in the article variously as "irua," FGM, FGC, or "female genital surgery" (FGS)), involve the most private aspects of individual female physical and cultural identity. Yet, the damaging physical and emotional health effects and the gender discrimination implications made the practices a topic of widespread international feminist human rights advocacy. The article examined the key controversies raging at the time--terminology, domestic criminalization, international condemnation, health education approaches, and gender-based asylum. The paper assesses the known origins of the practices and traditional justifications as well as indigenous and international efforts to eradicate FGM-FGC. In addition, the article explores the meanings of cross-cultural solidarity among feminists in the African diaspora and feminists in practicing regions on the African continent. The article concludes that feminist human rights approaches to FGM-FGC must address the unavoidable conflicts associated with eradication efforts and seek to create opportunities for engaged cross-cultural dialogue on ways to end the practices.

Protecting human rights in Africa : roles and strategies of non-governmental organizations

Abstract: Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1996 Since the 1950s, sub-Saharan Africa has been the site of profound political changes initiated by ascendant nationalism and rapid decolonization. With this new beginning came fresh challenges involving many crucial aspects of human rights: self-determination; civil and political rights, including government legitimacy; military involvement in African politics; and unfulfilled basic needs that have cried out for economic and social development. Protecting Human Rights in Africa is the first major comparative study of the way human rights NGOs have brought revolutionary change south of the Sahara. Governments are both the most important protectors and abusers of human rights, while NGOs have become the most effective detectives in discovering abuses and the most active advocates in seeking solutions.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child: United Nations Lawmaking on Human Rights

Abstract: In November 1989, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) after nearly a decade of debate over its merits and provisions. Less than a year later, it was ratified by twenty countries, the threshold number required for implementation. No other UN human rights treaty was ever ratified so rapidly and with such enthusiasm. In this carefully researched book, Lawrence J. LeBlanc provides a historical overview of the origins of the CRC and children's rights work, places the issues and problems into the broader perspective of the United Nations lawmaking process, provides an in-depth analysis of the children's rights enumerated in the treaty, and projects the prospects for effective implementation of the CRC. He outlines why the convention comes at the best possible time and how it represents the single most important international document on children's rights. With the CRC's broad ratification, its political significance continues to grow. Close cooperation among the UN monitoring committee, UNICEF and other UN agencies, and nongovernmental organizations make it difficult for governments to ignore their pledges. Although the conditions under which many of the world's children are living give rise to legitimate concern about the CRC's real impact, LeBlanc demonstrates that our greatest hope comes from working to reduce the thin line between commitment and clichi. Lawrence J. LeBlanc is the author of The United States and the Genocide Convention and The OAS and the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. He is an associate professor of political science at Marquette University.

Politics and human rights

Abstract: Introduction:. Human Rights in the Study of Politics D. Beetham (Leeds University). Human Rights and Political Theory:. 1. Human Rights in Political Theory: S Mendus (York University). 2. Are There Collective Human Rights?: M Freeman (Essex University). 3. What Future for Economic and Social Rights?: D. Beetham (Leeds University). Human Rights in a Global Context:. 4. State Sovereignty and Human Rights: Towards a Global Constitutional Project: A Rosas (Abo Akademi University). 5. Stock Taking on Human Rights: The World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna 1993: K Boyle (Essex University). 6. The Role and Limits of Human Rights NGOs at the United Nations: R Brett (Quaker United Nations Office). 7. Human Rights and US Foreign Policy: Two Levels, Two Worlds: D P Forsythe (Nebraska-Lincoln University). Regional Perspectives on Human Rights. 8. Human Rights and the New Europe: Experience and Experiment: H Storey (Leeds University). 9. Relativism and Universalism in Human Rights The Case of the Islamic Middle East: F Halliday (London School of Economics & Political Science). 10. Human Rights in the Processes of Transition and Consolidation of Democracy in Latin America: F Panizza (Institute of Latin American Studies, London University). 11. Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa: S Kaballo (Sudan Human Rights Organisation). 12. Regime Security and Human Rights in Southeast Asia: K Christie (Natal University).

The Language of Rights and European Integration

Abstract: This paper examines the language of rights as it appears within Community law, and looks at the varying contexts in which it is used, since different observations may be made about these different contexts. I will focus not only on the "fundamental rights" declared and constituted by the Court of Justice as part of the general principles of Community law, but on the language of rights more widely as used throughout the Community legal system, by the institutions in the legislative process, and in the application of Community law to the Member States. This will include not just those rights which have been declared by the Court to have fundamental or "constitutional" status, but also those rights which are created, conferred or declared by Community legislative and other measures. Indeed, the legislative rights which are created at Community level generally acquire a form of constitutional status at the national level where they take priority over national law. This also entails consideration of those areas of Community law in which the language of rights has, perhaps surprisingly, not figured very largely or at all. What is particularly of interest is why the language of rights has come to be used so widely within these areas of Community law, and why it continues to be expanded and developed by the judicial and political institutions. Two partial explanations will be suggested, which focus on how that language is perceived as both a legitimating and an integrating force. Finally, I wish to consider what impact that language may have in reality, and whether a more critical or even sceptical approach is called for.

Gender, health, and human rights.

Abstract: This essay explores how the gender role assigned to women by society is detrimental to womens health and how international human rights law requires states to rectify the situation. The introductory section notes that womens reproductive role has led to development of a social framework that limits womens capacities and health in many societies and that gender planning covers both the practical and the strategic needs of all women. The next section defines and explains the terms "sex" and "gender" and discusses gender roles. Section 3 looks at womens subordination and exclusion arising from the inferior status assigned to women and to female-gendered activities in societies throughout the world. Attention is then paid to how health professions have contributed to the construction of womens role. While medicine has focused attention on the distress of individual women in clinical settings health professionals have inadvertently enabled the subordination and oppression of women by diagnosing womens discontent as medical problems and by treating women as inferior to men. When awareness grows that health is jeopardized by gender discrimination health professionals may seek redress or prevention of such discrimination through human rights instruments. The essay continues by tracing the development of modern concepts of human rights and by referring to the explicit human rights covenants that relate to womens health issues. The legal approaches that seek to apply human rights to health are then considered in terms of negative (allowing individuals to pursue their own preferences) and positive rights (which sometimes require social reconstruction). It is concluded that international human rights law requires states to rectify gender discrimination and justifies the initiatives of individuals and nongovernmental organizations to help states conform to the law and to hold them accountable when they fail to do so.

The Carter Presidency: A Re-Evaluation

Abstract: The Carter presidency competence - Washington from the outside human rights in domestic context - the case of women's rights Black civil rights compassion and foreign policy - the case of the Soviet Union and Northern Ireland human rights and revolutions - Nicaragua and Iran from human rights to the Carter doctrine.

Stock-taking on Human Rights: The World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna 1993

Abstract: In June 1993, 171 states were gathered by the United Nations in Vienna to confer on human rights. Representatives of states and of international agencies were joined by an estimated 800 non-governmental organizations, making it the largest assembly ever on global human rights issues. The Vienna World Conference on Human Rights was only the second such international consultation focused exclusively on human rights in United Nations history. A similar conference had been held in Teheran in 1968 to mark the twenty fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.' International conferences are not a new phenomenon but historically a staple of great power diplomacy. But in a post-colonial world of now over 180 independent and formally equal states, such world wide UN inspired consultations, involving all governments and open to a degree of non-governmental participation and pressure, has a distinctly different significance. The World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna had been preceded by the Rio conference on Environment and Development, in 1992 and was followed in September 1993 by the UN conference on Population and Development held in Cairo. A conference on World Social Development will be held in March 1995 in Copenhagen, to be followed by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in September 1995. These global processes of consultation and participation and poiicy formation are likely to be a significant element in shaping the future international society.2 The idea of a world conference on human rights was first suggested in 1989, as the Cold War was coming to an end. The ideological competition between East and West which had long distorted United Nations processes was over. The thought was that a fresh start could be made in strengthening the United Nations to enable it to pursue a range of global challenges including its human rights m i ~ s i o n . ~ The focus of the conference therefore was intended primarily

The European Union and human rights

Abstract: Foreword. Contributors. Abbreviations. 1. The Treaty on European Union: a step forward in the protection of human rights? N.A. Neuwahl. 2. Aspects of the relationship between Community law and national law S. O'Leary. 3. Fundamental rights and fundamental boundaries: on standards and values in the protection of human rights J.H.H. Weiler. 4. Access to European Union information: an element of citizenship and a neglected constitutional right D. Curtin, H. Meijers. 5. Rights of free movement D. Pollard. 6. Human rights of aliens in Europe H.G. Schermers. 7. The protection of national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities M.A.M. Estebanez. 8. Electoral rights and the European Union: a broader human rights perspective A. Rosas. 9. Workers' rights of participation C. Barnard. 10. Social rights as general principles of Community law E. Szyszczak. 11. A gendered perspective on the right to family life in European Community law T. Hervey. 12. Cultural protection: a matter of Union citizenship or human rights? M. Ross. 13. Property rights: a forgotten issue under the Union F. Campbell-White. 14. Freedom of expression for commercial actors P.M. Twomey. 15. Extraterritoriality in human rights P. Torremans. 16. The European Union's foreign policy and human rights D. Napoli. Select bibliography. Table of cases. Index.

Constitutional Law in Theory and Practice

Abstract: David Beatty draws on more than twenty years' teaching experience to produce a comprehensive introduction to constitutional law, accessible to students of law and non-specialists alike. He reviews the leading cases that have come before the Privy Council and the Supreme Court of Canada concerning the BNA Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As well, Beatty reviews important decisions made by courts around the world and analyses the function judges perform in liberal-democratic societies when they enforce written constitutions that include bills of rights. Chapter 1 introduces constitutional law - what it is all about, what its function is, and how it interacts with the constitutional text. The book examines Canadian federalism law and the Supreme Court of Canada's experience with the Charter of Rights. It also looks at significant human rights cases decided by major courts around the world, showing how the same principles and methods of reasoning are used elsewhere to resolve legal disputes. The author concludes that a theory of constitutional law that puts greater emphasis on the social duties politicians must respect than on individual rights should be responsive to the concerns of both those who are sceptical about the virtues of law and the courts and those who fear Western cultural imperialism. Beatty proposes a radically new way of thinking about 'rights' - one that emphasizes the social duties inherent in the very conception of rights. By reorienting our thinking about rights and the rule of law, we can see that democratic decision-making and judicial review, rather than being in conflict with each other, support a common set of values and ideals.