After the abolition of slavery in 1897, Islamic courts in Zanzibar (East Africa) became central institutions where former slaves negotiated socioeconomic participation. By using difficult-to-read ...Islamic court records in Arabic, Elke Stockreiter reassesses the workings of these courts as well as gender and social relations in Zanzibar Town during British colonial rule (1890–1963). She shows how Muslim judges maintained their autonomy within the sphere of family law and describes how they helped advance the rights of women, ex-slaves, and other marginalised groups. As was common in other parts of the Muslim world, women usually had to buy their divorce. Thus, Muslim judges played important roles as litigants negotiated moving up the social hierarchy, with ethnicisation increasingly influencing all actors. Drawing on these previously unexplored sources, this study investigates how Muslim judges both mediated and generated discourses of inclusion and exclusion based on social status rather than gender.
The United Nations adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) constituted a paradigm shift in attitudes and approaches to disability rights, marking the first time ...in law-making history that persons with disabilities participated as civil society representatives and contributed to the drafting of an international treaty. On the way, they brought a new kind of diplomacy forward: empowering nongovernmental stakeholders, including persons with disabilities, within human rights discourse. This landmark treaty provides an opportunity to consider what it means to involve members of a global civil society in UN-level negotiations.Human Rights and Disability Advocacybrings together perspectives from individual representatives of the Disabled People's Organizations (DPOs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), indigenous peoples' organizations, states, and national institutions that played leading roles in the Convention's drafting process. The contributors provide vivid and personal accounts of the paths to victory, including stumbling blocks-not all of which were overcome-and offer a unique look into the politics of civil society organizations both "from within" and in its interaction with governments. Each essay describes the nonnegotiable key issues for which they advocated; the extent of success in reaching their goals; and insights into the limitations they faced. Through the plurality of voices and insider perspectives,Human Rights and Disability Advocacypresents fresh perspectives on the shift toward a new diplomacy and explores the implication of this model for human rights advocacy more generally.Contributors:Andrew Byrnes, Heidi Forrest, Phillip French, Lex Grandia, Huhana Hickey, Markku Jokinen, Liisa Kauppinen, Mi Yeon Kim, Gerison Lansdown, Connie Laurin-Bowie, Tirza Leibowitz, Don MacKay, Anna MacQuarrie, Ronald C. McCallum AO, Tara J. Melish, Pamela Molina Toledo, Maya Sabatello, Marianne Schulze, Belinda Shaw.
While bus boycotts, sit-ins, and other acts of civil disobedience were the engine of the civil rights movement, the law was a primary context. Lawyers played a key role amid profound social ...upheavals, and the twenty-six contributors to this volume reveal what it was like to be a southern civil rights lawyer in this era.
These eyewitness accounts provide unique windows onto the most dramatic moments in civil rights history, illuminating the legal fights that heralded the 1965 Selma March, the first civil judgment against the Ku Klux Klan, the creation of ballot access for blacks in Alabama, and the 1968 Democratic Convention. White and black, male and female, northern- and southern-born, these lawyers discuss both the abuses they endured and the barriers they broke as they helped shape a critical chapter of American history.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence.
Drawing from the EU-funded DomEQUAL research project across 9 countries in Europe, South America and Asia, this comparative study explores ...the conditions of domestic workers around the world and the campaigns they are conducting to improve their labour rights.
The book showcases how domestic workers' movements put 'intersectionality in action' in representing the interest of various marginalized social groups from migrants and low-income groups to racialized and rural girls and women.
Casting light on issues such as subjectification, and collective organizing on the part of a category of workers conventionally regarded as unorganizable, this ambitious volume will be invaluable for scholars, policy makers and activists alike.
Case studies explore how women's rights shape state
responses to sex trafficking and show how politically empowering
women can help prevent and combat human trafficking
Human trafficking for the sex ...trade is a form of modern-day
slavery that ensnares thousands of victims each year,
disproportionately affecting women and girls. While the
international community has developed an impressive edifice of
human rights law, these laws are not equally recognized or enforced
by all countries. Sex Trafficking and Human Rights
demonstrates that state responsiveness to human trafficking is
shaped by the political, social, cultural, and economic rights
afforded to women in that state.
While combatting human trafficking is a multiscalar problem with
a host of conflating variables, this book shows that a common theme
in the effectiveness of state response is the degree to which women
and girls are perceived as, and actually are, full citizens. By
analyzing human trafficking cases in India, Thailand, Russia,
Nigeria, and Brazil, they shed light on the factors that make some
women and girls more susceptible to traffickers than others.
This important book is both a call to understanding and a call
to action: if the international community and state governments are
to responsibly and effectively combat human trafficking, they must
center the equality of women in national policy.
The book considers human rights approaches to crimes from a theoretical and practical perspective, analyses various crimes under international law, and examines the application, implementation and ...enforcement of international criminal law.
Lawlessness and economics Dixit, Avinash K; Dixit, Avinash K
2004., 20111023, 2011, 2004, 2004-01-01, 20040101, Volume:
1
eBook
How can property rights be protected and contracts be enforced in countries where the rule of law is ineffective or absent? How can firms from advanced market economies do business in such ...circumstances? In Lawlessness and Economics, Avinash Dixit examines the theory of private institutions that transcend or supplement weak economic governance from the state.
A comparative investigation into the revolution in private law in the era of human rights
Scotland and South Africa are mixed jurisdictions, combining features of common law and civil law traditions. ...Over the last decade, a shared feature in both Scotland and South Africa has been a new and intense focus on human rights.
In Scotland, the European Convention on Human Rights now constitutes an important element in the foundation of all domestic law. Similarly, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, adopted in 1996, has a Bill of Rights as its cornerstone. This binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all organs of state - and also private parties.
In some ways, the Scottish and South African experience could not be more dissimilar, and the 'constitutional moments' from which these documents sprang were very different. At the same time, the parallels are close and compelling. This book, written by experts from both jurisdictions, examines exactly how human-rights provisions influence private law, looking at all branches of the subject. Moreover, it gives a unique perspective by comparing the approach in these kindred legal systems, providing a benchmark for both.
An interdisciplinary collection,Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rightsexamines the potential and limitations of the "women's rights as human rights" framework as a strategy for seeking gender ...justice. Drawing on detailed case studies from the United States, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere, contributors to the volume explore the specific social histories, political struggles, cultural assumptions, and gender ideologies that have produced certain rights or reframed long-standing debates in the language of rights. The essays address the gender-specific ways in which rights-based protocols have been analyzed, deployed, and legislated in the past and the present and the implications for women and men, adults and children in various social and geographical locations. Questions addressed include: What are the gendered assumptions and effects of the dominance of rights-based discourses for claims to social justice? What kinds of opportunities and limitations does such a "culture of rights" provide to seekers of justice, whether individuals or collectives, and how are these gendered? How and why do female bodies often become the site of contention in contexts pitting cultural against juridical perspectives? The contributors speak to central issues in current scholarly and policy debates about gender, culture, and human rights from comparative disciplinary, historical, and geographical perspectives. By taking "gender," rather than just "women," seriously as a category of analysis, the chapters suggest that the very sources of the power of human rights discourses, specifically "women's rights as human rights" discourses, to produce social change are also the sources of its limitations.
In recent years, influential studies have shown that the activities of human rights organizations are central in convincing violating governments to improve their practices. Yet some governments ...continue to get away with human rights violations despite mobilizations against them. InHuman Rights and State Security: Indonesia and the Philippines, Anja Jetschke considers the impact of transnational human rights advocacy on the process of human rights reform and democratization in two countries that have been successful in resisting international human rights pressure. Jetschke details the effects of campaigns waged by international and domestic NGOs, foreign governments, local opposition leaders, and international organizations. She argues that the literature on transnational advocacy overlooks the ability of governments to justify and excuse human rights violations in their public dialogue with human rights organizations. Describing efforts of international and domestic human rights advocates to protect the rights of various groups, the case studies in this book suggest that governments successfully block or evade pressures if they invoke threats to state security. Jetschke finds that state security puts into play a set of powerful international norms related to sovereignty-a state's right to territorial integrity, the secular organization of the state, or a government's lack of control over the means of organized violence. If governments frame persuasive arguments around these norms, they can effectively mobilize competing domestic and international groups and trump human rights advocacy.Human Rights and State Securityshows that the content and arguments on behalf of human rights matter and provide opportunities for both governments and civil society organizations to advance their agendas.
