Edited by Eva Höglund with contributions from Betty Haugen, Lena Olsson and Karen Lise Thylstrup
bjh= Betty Haugen, Librarian (Oslo), Head Librarian Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo
eh=Eva Höglund, M.Pol.Sc., Coordinator for human rights studies, Institute for Human Rights/Åbo Akademi University, Åbo, Finland
klt=Karen Lise Thylstrup, Master of library and information science, Librarian, DCISM Library, Danish Center for International Studies and Human Rights, Copenhagen
lo=Lena Olsson, Librarian, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund
We shall list and summarize irecent additions to the libraries of the Nordic institutes for human rights n this column. For more information about the publications please visit the homepages of the libraries/institutes.
Andersen, Erik André og Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke (eds). Internationale retsopgør : krigsforbrydelser, folkedrab og forbrydelser mod menneskeheden. København: DIIS, 2008, 120 p.
Den ny verden: tidsskrift for internationale studier, 2008:2. (Temanummer)
ISBN: 978-87-7605-285-0, ISSN 0029-6775
This is a thematic issue of the journal “Den ny verden: tidsskrift for internationale studier” on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment on the Crime of Genocide Convention.
The articles focus on the International Criminal Court and other international and regional criminal courts and tribunals. The articles answer some of the following questions: What was the background to and context in which the tribunals were created? On which mandate were they created (International law or national law or a mixture)? How are the various tribunals structured, and what sort of cases have they dealt with? This special edition also includes two thematic-historical articles: one on Simon Wiesenthal and the archive he left behind after his death in 2005, and one on the UN Genocide Convention of 1948.
Andersen, Lars Erlslev, Karina Pultz og Kasper Ege (eds). Religion og/eller politik : danske terrorsager, fraværende håndtryk og assymmetriske konflikter. København: DIIS, 2008. 104 p.
Den ny verden : tidsskrift for internationale studier, 2008:1. (Temanummer)
ISBN: 978-87-7605-285-0, ISSN 0029-6775
The articles in this thematic issue of the journal “Den ny verden: tidsskrift for internationale studier” focus on the relationship between religion and/or politics and terrorism. Some of the articles approach the issues from a Danish context.
Bullard, Alice (ed.). Human rights in crisis. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. 160 p.
ISBN: 978-0-7546-7028-5
The background to and idea behind this book are found in the reports on human rights abuses by American soldiers and interrogators at the Abu-Ghraib prison and the Guantanamo detention centre. The reports have caused deep concern among human rights advocates.
Law and legal studies are often recognized as the discipline most closely associated with the study and advancement of human rights, but the present book takes a broader view and includes anthropology, sociology, and history as well as legal studies. The authors are affiliated to universities or human rights centres in the United States and United Kingdom.
The first part of the book explores ‘The Post 9/11 Climate’. The hallmarks of the current era in human rights - the era of crisis - are the controversial policies of torture, rendition, and of holding so-called enemy combatants without recourse to legal representation and without guarantee of just treatment as outlined in the Geneva Conventions.
One of the authors, Ashley Barr, argues that United States has changed its ‘culture of human rights’ during Bush’s administration and become ‘a cynical actor that denies torture, kidnapping and arbitrary detention’. Barr uses many detailed examples to show how the war on terror has become a pretext around the globe of states to prosecute human rights defenders.
The second part, which deals with ‘Defining human rights in an era of controversy’, explores the uneasy juxtaposition of the ideals of human rights, the realities of state sovereignty and the cultural contingency of politics. The third part ‘Pursuing human rights and prosecuting violators’ has chapters about trafficking and how to hold human rights abusers to account. lo
Butenschøn, Nils A. Midtøsten: imperiefall, statsutvikling, kriger. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2008. 434 p. ISBN 978-82-15-00687-1
This book provides the context necessary for an understanding of the historical events fueling the complex conflicts in the Middle East. The Middle East is here defined as Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Conflicts in the Middle East evolved largely around nation building: how states should be organized, how power within these states should be shared and how citizen’s basic rights should be protected. The book is organized chronologically with the major wars in the region serving as “boundaries” for most chapters. Within the chapters the author focuses on three main themes: the local preconditions for nation building; international intervention; the Palestinian/Arab- Israeli conflict. He summarizes and analyzes the course of history between the Ottoman Empire, the 1967 Arab/Israel wars and the regional alliances of the early 1970s. His intention is to meet the demand for an easily accessible yet academically solid presentation – in Norwegian. The presentation can be placed in a political science tradition which is part international politics and historically oriented political sociology. A selected bibliography and subject index are included. bjh
Francioni, Francesco & Martin Scheinin (eds). Cultural human rights. Leiden : Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008. viii, 369 p. (International studies in human rights, vol. 95) ISBN 978-90-04-16294-5
What is the relationship between culture and human rights? This publication seeks to analyze specific dilemmas, such as whether the idea of cultural rights can be compatible with the concept of human rights, what the actual content of cultural rights is and what obligations cultural rights pose upon states. The authors also attempt to identify the beneficiaries of cultural rights in terms of individuals, peoples and groups as collective entities. Have these rights affected international law and the development of a coherent category of cultural human rights? The authors engage with difficult dilemmas related to minority rights, freedom of religion and indigenous peoples’ rights. Martin Scheinin has written a chapter dealing with the right of a people to enjoy its culture, namely the Saami. He discusses the notion of indigenous peoples and the articulation of indigenous peoples’ rights and concludes with a study of the proposed Saami Rights Convention and its references to the Saami culture.
Contents: 1 Culture, Heritage and Human Rights: An Introduction Francesco Francioni; 2 The Cross-Cultural Legitimacy of Universal Human Rights: Plural Justification Across Normative Divides Tore Lindholm; 3 Self-Determination and Cultural Rights A.F. Vrdoljak; 4 Cultural Rights: A Necessary Corrective to the Nation State William K. Barth; 5 Protecting Peoples’ Cultural Rights: A Question of Properly Understanding the Notion of States and Nations? Matthias Ǻhrén; 6 Indigenous Peoples’ Cultural Rights and the Controversy over Commercial Use of their Traditional Knowledge Federico Lenzerini; 7 The Right of a People to Enjoy Its Culture: Towards a Nordic Saami Rights Convention Martin Scheinin; 8 Cultural Identity and Legal Status: Or, the Return of the Right to Have (Particular) Rights Enikő Horváth; 9 Minorities’ Right to Maintain and Develop Their Cultures: Legal Implications of Social Science Research Timo Makkonen; 10 The Role of the State in Balancing Religious Freedom with Other Human Rights in a Multicultural European Context Stéphanie Lagoutte and Eva Maria Lassen; 11 Accessing Culture at the EU Level: An Indirect Contribution to Cultural Rights Protection? Evangelia Psychogiopoulou; 12 Language Rights as Cultural Rights: A European Perspective Susanna Mancini and Bruno de Witte; 13 The Place of Cultural Rights in the WTO System John Morijn; 14 A Right to Cultural Identity in UNESCO Yvonne Donders; 15 Political Change and the ‘Creative Destruction’ of Public Space Sanford Levinson. eh
Henrard, Kristin & Robert Dunbar (eds). Synergies in minority protection : European and international law perspectives. Cambridge : Cambridge U.P., 2008. xi, 462 p. ISBN 978-0-521-86483-1
This publication presents an up-to-date account of the relevant standards, with respect to the protection of minorities in international and European law, and their development in practice. In addition, this collection seeks to identify the extent to which some integration and coherence is emerging as a result of the work of treaty-monitoring bodies and other international institutions. Although there exists a complex regime, it still does not amount to an integrated and coherent system of minority protection. The chapters in the book focus on specific major international instruments and organizations and together they offer an overview of the most important recent developments.
Martin Scheinin has written a chapter dealing with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and focusing on Article 27. He studies the minority concept and presents some cases, which the Human Rights Committee has dealt with, concerning the issue of an individual’s right to belong to a minority. He examines the positive state obligations that have been derived from Article 27 by the Human Rights Committee and legal commentators. Article 27 has also been related to groups that both constitute a minority and identify themselves as indigenous peoples. Scheinin also scrutinizes other provisions of the Covenant, especially the provision on the right of all peoples to self-determination.
Contents: 1. Introduction Kristin Henrard and Robert Dunbar; 2. The United Nations’ International Convention on Civil and Political Rights: Article 27 and other Provisions Martin Scheinin; 3. The United Nations’ Working Group on Minorities Li-Ann Thio; Postscript: The United Nations’ Independent Expert on Minorities Gay McDougall; 4. The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Arie Bloed and Rianne Letschert; 5. The Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities Asbjørn Eide; 6. The Council of Europe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages Robert Dunbar; 7. Developments relating to Minorities in the Law on Genocide William Schabas; 8. The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights María Amor and Martín Estébanez; 9. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Ivan Garvalov; 10. The United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child and Children belonging to Minority Groups Jaap Doek; 11. UNESCO’s Convention against Discrimination in Education Fons Coomans; 12. A patchwork of ‘successful’ and ‘missed’ synergies in the jurisprudence of the ECHR Kristin Henrard; 13. The many faces of minority protection in the European Union Bruno De Witte and Enikő Horváth; 14. Developments under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights relevant to Minorities Tim Murithi; 15. Regional Cooperation and Minority Protection in the Asia-Pacific Region Erik Friberg. eh
Karanja, Stephen Kabera. Transparency and proportionality in the Schengen Information System and border control co-operation. Leiden: Nijhoff, 2008. XXIII, 466 p. (The Raoul Wallenberg Institute human rights library ; vol. 32). ISBN 978-90-04-16223-5. Docoral thesis (dr. juris), University of Oslo, 2006.
The objective of the Schengen co-operation is the removal of internal border controls in order to facilitate free movement of persons in the region. The goal of the Schengen Information system (SIS) is to ensure security in the region, that is, to combat crime and control illegal immigration. The aim of this thesis is to examine whether there is fairness in the Schengen Information System and border control co-operation. The author investigates the transparency and proportionality of the police and border control measures, and tries to find out whether this system is accompanied by adequate human rights safeguards for the individuals involved. The transparency and proportionality perspectives are developed from European and international human rights and data protection criteria. These are supplemented with the understanding of principles as enunciated in Norwegian data protection theory. The analysis also pays special attention to the protection of the rights of asylum seekers. In addition the thesis includes a descriptive analysis of the technological, legal and policy developments since the inception of the co-operation in 1985. The findings reveal that the Schengen co-operation suffers from a deficiency of transparency and proportionality in some significant areas. Access to legal information has improved considerably. However, there are still many obstacles for individuals who would like to access their personal information. Rules of access are unclear and difficult to exercise. At the same time, there is an apparent increase of surveillance in society as a result of the proliferation of border control information systems, new biometrics identification methods and an increase in data sharing as well as an increase in restrictive border control and terrorism laws. This lack of transparency and proportionality could lead to excessive surveillance and loss of privacy in society. The author recommends changes in law, procedure and institutions to provide a clearer and more consistent framework for effective safeguards. A select bibliography and subject index are included. bjh
Kessing, Peter Vedel. Terrorbekæmpelse og menneskeret – med særlig fokus på retten til ikke at blive udsat for vilkårlig frihedsberøvelse og tortur, umenneskelig eller nedværdigende behandling. København: Jurist- og Økonomforbundets Forlag, 2009. 592 p. ISBN: 978-87-574-1978-8. Ph.D.-afhandling - Københavns Universitet 2008.
The book is a slightly revised edition of the author’s Ph.D. thesis, which he defended at the Law Faculty at Copenhagen University in June 2008. The aim of the book is to discuss the legal frame within which international terrorism can be fought - how can human rights obligations limit what measures States can take in order to fight terrorism and how is terrorism defined? The relationship between counter-terrorism norms in international humanitarian law and the 13 international anti-terrorism conventions are discussed as well. In his discussions the author analyses the relationship between two specific rights, the right to freedom of torture, inhumane and degrading treatment and the right not to be arbitrarily detained, and the fight against terrorism. The last chapter of the book discusses 1) to what extent human rights came under pressure after 9/11 and 2) whether human rights norms are obstacles to or a precondition for effectively countering terrorism. The book is aimed at everyone with an interest in the fundamental political problems within the field of international law, which the fight against terror has lead to. klt
Koivurova, Timo. From high hopes to disillusionment: indigenous peoples’ struggle to (re)gain their right to self-determination. Article in International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, vol. 15, no. 1 (2008), pp. 1-26. Leiden : Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2008. ISSN 1385-4879
In this article Timo Koivurova examines three international processes wherein the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples has been taken up. These are the processes whereby the United Nations General Assembly adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the intention to negotiate a Nordic Saami Convention and the practice of the Human Rights Committee in monitoring the observance of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Although indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination has been enunciated in different international contexts, claims based on such a right have met with resistance from the states. The author examines why it is so difficult to insert indigenous peoples into international law as a category and to have states accept their right to self-determination. According to Koivurova, it seems unlikely indigenous peoples will (re)gain their right to full self-determination. On the other hand, they stand a better chance of improving their legal rights and status in national law and this is the level where most important decisions are made. eh
Langford, Malcolm (ed.). Social rights jurisprudence: emerging trends in international and comparative law. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2008. XV, 687 p. ISBN 978-0-521-86094-9, 9780521678056
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) was adopted in 1966 and entered into force in 1976. In 1987 the ESCR Committee was created to monitor states parties’ compliance with their obligations. The role of courts in the implementation of social rights has been in dispute. Nevertheless, two decades after the establishment of the Committee, a wide range of national courts has adopted positions and is generating jurisprudence in relation to social rights. The breadth of the decisions is vast. Courts have ordered the reconnection of water supplies; the halting of forced evictions; the provision of medical treatments; the reinstatement of social security benefits; the enrolment of poor children and minorities in schools and the development and improvement of state initiatives to address homelessness; endemic diseases and starvation. These are just a few examples of the almost two thousand judicial and quasi-judicial decisions from twenty-nine national and international jurisdictions which are described and analyzed in this book. The jurisprudence not only broadens our understanding of economic, social and cultural rights but also challenges the philosophical debates that question whether these rights can and should be justiciable.
Contents: Foreword Philip Alston; PART ONE: OVERVIEW: The justiciability of social rights: from practice to theory Malcolm Langford; The challenges of crafting remedies for violations of socio-economic rights Kent Roach; The right to legal aid in social rights litigation Andrea Durbach; PART TWO: SELECT NATIONAL JURISDICTIONS: South Africa Sandra Liebenberg; India S. Muralidhar; South Asia Iain Bryne & Sara Hossain; Colombia Magdalena Sepúlveda; Argentina Christian Courtis; Brazil Flavia Piovesan; Venezuela Enrique Gonzalez; Canada Martha Jackman & Bruce Porter; The United States Cathy Albisa & Jessica Schultz; Hungary Malcolm Langford; France Laurent Pech; United Kingdom Jeff A. King; Ireland Aoife Nolan; PART THREE: REGIONAL PROCEDURES AND JURISPRUDENCE: African regional human rights system Danwood Mzikenge Chirwa; The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Tara J. Melish; The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Tara J. Melish; European Court of Human Rights Luke Clements & Alan Simmons; The European Committee of Social Rights Urfan Khaliq & Robin Churchill; European Court of Justice Philippa Watson; PART FOUR: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS PROCEDURES AND JURISPRUDENCE: Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Malcolm Langford and Jeff A. King; Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Nathalie Prouvez; Human Rights Committee Martin Scheinin; Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women Leilani Farha; Committee on the Rights of the Child Geraldine Van Bueren; PART FIVE: SPECIAL TOPICS: The International Labour Organisation Colin Fenwick; Liability of multinational corporations Sarah Joseph; The World Bank Inspection Panel Dana Clark. A subject index is included. bjh
Pitarch, Pedro, Shannon Speed, and Xochitl Leyva Solano (eds). Human rights in the Maya region : global politics, cultural contentions, and moral engagements. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2008. - IX, 377 p. ISBN 978-0-8223-4296-0, 978-0-8223-4313-4.
In recent years, Latin American indigenous groups have made effective use of human rights arguments to legitimate their positions and pursue their goals. The presence of international actors has brought human rights to increased prominence in ongoing negotiations between the state and the Maya of Chiapas and Guatemala. In this volume, scholars and activists examine the role of human rights in the ways states relate to their populations, analyze conceptualizations of human rights by Mayans, and explore the relationship between Western-derived concepts of human rights and various Mayan cultural understandings. Contents: Introduction Shannon Speed and Xochitl Leyva Solano; PART 1: GLOBAL POLITICS AND NATION-STATES: Cultural rights and human rights: a social science perspective Rodolfo Stavenhagen; Perspectives on the politics of human rights in Guatemala Robert M. Carmack; Legal globalization and human rights: constructing the rule of law in postconflict Guatemala? Rachel Sieder;
PART 2: CULTURAL CONTENTIONS: The labyrinth of translation: a Tzeltal version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Pedro Pitarch; Are human rights destroying the natural balance of all things?: the difficult encounter between international law and community law in Mayan Guatemala Stener Ekern; “Here it’s different”: the Ch’orti’ and human rights training Julián López García; Indigenous law and gender dialogues Irma Otzoy; Human rights, land conflicts, and the memory of the violence in the Ixil country of northern Quiché David Stoll;
PART 3: POLITICAL ENGAGEMENTS: Global discourses on the local terrain: human rights in Chiapas Shannon Speed and Xochitl Leyva Solano; Breaking the reign of silence: ethnography of a clandestine cemetery Victoria Sanford; Rights of the poor: progressive Catholicism and indigenous resistance in Chiapas Christine Kovic; “Asumiendo nuestra propia defensa”: resistance and the Red de Defensores Comunitarios in Chiapas Shannon Speed and Alvaro Reyes;
FINAL COMMENTS: Making rights meaningful for Mayas: reflections on culture, rights and power Richard Ashby Wilson. A select bibliography and subject index are included. bjh
Scarpa, Silvia. Trafficking in human beings: modern slavery. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 230 p. ISBN13: 9780199541904, ISBN10: 0199541906
This book gives a broad overview of the phenomenon trafficking, from trafficking in persons to illegal adoption and trafficking in human organs. In the first part with the title ‘Trafficking in Persons as one of the XXI Century’s: New Form of Slavery’, the author examines trafficking in persons in light of the recent definition of the phenomenon by the UN Trafficking Protocol and various other international legal instruments. The author gives readers a definition of trafficking in persons and some explanations as to causes. These are related to extreme poverty, lack of access to resources, unemployment, and poor education. Because of the marginalization of women in society and the feminization of poverty, trafficking obviously affects especially women and children. Gender inequality makes women and girls especially vulnerable to traffickers. The author urges collaboration between actors dealing with this complex and multifaceted phenomenon, emphasizes the lack of data and requests further research. Part II reviews the most important international conventions against slavery and the slave trade, and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, adopted in 2000. It also analyses the most important policy documents setting the basic standards of protection for trafficked victims - namely the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking. Part III deals with the Council of Europe and the European Union, and their fight against trafficking in people, arguing that the focus has been placed mistakenly on the prosecution of traffickers rather than on the protection of trafficked victims. The book includes table of cases from International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, European Court of Human Rights, European Court of Justice, a table of litigation, bibliography and index. The footnotes are referring to UN documents like UN reports by the Special Rapporteur and different Human Rights Treaty Bodies. lo
Suksi, Markku. Functional autonomy: the case of Finland with some notes on the basis of international human rights law and comparisons with other cases. Article in International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, vol. 15, no. 2-3 (2008), pp. 195-225. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 2008. ISSN 1385-4879
According to Markku Suksi it is possible to distinguish functional autonomy, consisting of various administrative arrangements, as a specific form of autonomy on the top of territorial, cultural and personal autonomy. He defines functional autonomy thus: ´Functional autonomy aims at providing adequate linguistic services to a minority population in respect of a certain public function (such as education) by means of creating special linguistically identified units at different administrative levels inside the general line-organization charged with the national or local administration of the public function´. In a case study of Finland Suksi examines the general framework for providing services in the two national languages and functional autonomy in the fields of education and in ecclesiastical matters. He performs an evaluation against the background of international concepts and examines some comparative cases on functional autonomy in other countries. He concludes by suggesting that functional autonomy should always be considered by any legislator, administrator or expert in organizational matters who deals with ethnically, linguistically or religiously varied societies. eh
Sunder, Madhavi (ed.). Gender and feminist theory in law and society. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. xxiii, 556 p. (The International Library of Essays in Law and Society)
ISBN 978-0-7546-2623-7
The idea behind the series The International Library of Essays in Law and Society is to give a broad overview of the interdisciplinary inquiry. The ambition with the series is to collect and synthesize research published in the leading journals of the law field. This volume chronicles a quarter-century of feminist theorizations on equality and liberty. The book contains earlier published articles in journals like Harvard Law Journal and Yale Law Journal. The authors of these articles have had a big impact on the topic of feminist theory and are well known and respected scholars and researchers like Catharine A. MacKinnon, Martha Minow and Martha C. Nussbaum. For the reader who wants to get an overview of the current theory this volume is of big value.
In the introduction Madhavi Sunder states that the ‘Feminist confrontations in the twenty-first century will not be about access to physical space, but to discursive space.’ It is argued that male production of knowledge has created status hierarchies that send women to the bottom. The authors of the articles collected in this volume show that feminist legal theorists have played a critical role in laying the foundations of a democratization of law. lo
Wouters, Jan, André Nollkaemper & Erika de Wet (eds). The Europeanisation of international law : the status of international law in the EU and its member states. Hague : T.M.C. Asser Press, 2008. xvii, 238 p. ISBN 978-90-6704-285-7
This book addresses the consequences of European integration for the position of public international law in the European Union and its Member States. As international law has become part of the EU legal order, and thus “Europeanized”, its application and interpretation by the Member States are no longer solely a matter for their own constitutional order, but also governed by EU law. The book poses questions such as: are we dealing with the emergence of a distinct European system of public international law, to which extent do Member States recognize the effect of this “Europeanization” of international law and what is the role of the European Court of Justice with respect to the application and interpretation of “Europeanized” international law within the Member States.
The chapters in this book were originally presented at a conference held at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam in September 2005. Some chapters give examples of “Europeanized” international law in specific countries, namely Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Hungary. Allan Rosas has written a chapter dealing with the European Court of Justice and its interpretation of rules of public international law. He examines both international agreements and customary international law and illuminates the EU courts’ methods of interpretation. Other chapters in this book are written by Jan Wouters, André Nollkaemper, Erika de Wet, Rainer Wahl, Bruno de Witte, Christian Tietje, Pieter Jan Kuijper, Johan Callewaert, Astrid Epiney, Bernhard Hofstötter, Nóra Chronowski, Timea Drinóczi, Nikolaos Lavranos and Joost Pauwelyn. eh
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