35 results for "History"

The international human rights movement: a history

Neier, Aryeh
A fascinating history of the international human rights movement as seen by one of its founders During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in the struggle against totalitarian regimes, cruelties in wars, and crimes against humanity. Today, it grapples with the war against terror and subsequent abuses of government power. In The International Human Rights Movement , Aryeh Neier—a leading figure and a founder of the contemporary movement—offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of this global force, from its beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its essential place in world affairs today. Neier combines analysis with personal experience, and gives a unique insider's perspective on the movement's goals, the disputes about its mission, and its rise to international importance. Discussing the movement's origins, Neier looks at the dissenters who fought for religious freedoms in seventeenth-century England and the abolitionists who opposed slavery before the Civil War era. He pays special attention to the period from the 1970s onward, and he describes the growth of the human rights movement after the Helsinki Accords, the roles played by American presidential administrations, and the astonishing Arab revolutions of 2011. Neier argues that the contemporary human rights movement was, to a large extent, an outgrowth of the Cold War, and he demonstrates how it became the driving influence in international law, institutions, and rights. Throughout, Neier highlights key figures, controversies, and organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and he considers the challenges to come. Illuminating and insightful, The International Human Rights Movement is a remarkable account of a significant world movement, told by a key figure in its evolution.
Princeton University Press 2013-08-04 379 pages

Transatlantic tensions: the United States, Europe, and problem countries

Richard N. Haass
" Americans and Europeans are divided by more than an ocean when it comes to designing and carrying out policies toward countries that repress human rights, develop weapons of mass destruction, and/or support terrorism and subversion. Accounting for this divide are distinct interests, domestic politics, and above all profound disagreements between Americans and their counterparts in European capitals and Brussels over what tools of foreign policy--sanctions, engagement, military force--to empty to change the behavior of problem countries. The result is that Americans and Europeans often work at cross purposes--and that disagreements over policy toward problem countries threaten both to undermine efforts that promote desired change and transatlantic cooperation in other areas, be it within Europe or in building an open world trading system. This book examines the ""problem"" countries of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Nigeria. The authors explain sources of American and European differences, consequences for policies designed to influence problem states, and prospects for bridging transatlantic policy rifts. A conclusion by Richard N. Haass places these differences in perspective and suggests what Europe and the United States need to do to ameliorate this tension--and what could transpire if they do not. "
Brookings Institution Press 1999 251 pages

Exorcising terror: the incredible unending trial of General Augusto Pinochet

Dorfman, Ariel
'This is an excellent, quick and powerful read, accessible to everyone' Publishers WeeklyOn October 16th, 1998, the world awoke to amazing news: General Augusto Pinochet, Chile's former dictator, had been arrested by Scotland Yard in England & was awaiting extradition to Spain on charges of torture & genocide. What ensued became one of the most important human rights trials of the last fifty years: for the first time in the twentieth century, a former Head of State was being judged by a foreign court.Renowned author Ariel Dorfman, obsessed for twenty-five years with the malignant shadow General Pinochet cast upon Chile & the world, followed every twist & turn of the four year trial in Great Britain, Spain & Chile as well as in the U.S., the country that had created Pinochet. Told as a suspense thriller, filled with court-room drama & sudden reversals of fortune, the book at the same time addresses some of today's most burning issues, made all the more urgent after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. What are the limits of national sovereignty in a globalizing world? How does an ever more interconnected world judge crimes committed against humanity? What role do memory & pain & the rights of the survivors play in this struggle for a new system of justice? But above all, the author, by listening carefully to the voices of Pinochet's many victims, explores how can we purge ourselves of terror & fear once we have been traumatized, and asks if we can build peace & reconciliation without facing a turbulent & perverse past.From Dorfman's emotional reconstitution of the many phases of Pinochet's trial, both in London & in Santiago, there slowly emerges a picture of a victory, both for the people of Chile & for people the world over, serving as a prelude to the prosecution of other Heads of State - such as Milosevic in The Hague - but as a warning to many powerful men around the world - like Henry Kissinger - who felt they would never be held accountable for sufferings inflicted on faraway civilians.
Pluto 2003 218 pages

Would you believe ... The Helsinki Accords changed the world? human rights and, for decades, security in Europe

Osnos, Peter,Cartner, Holly
Would You Believe. . . When the Helsinki Accords were signed on August 1, 1975, the likelihood they would have a profound and lasting impact on the world were very small. Which is why a book about them after a half century is both surprisingly topical and well worth reading for anyone with an interest in modern history. The thirty-five signatories were the nations of Europe, the United States and Canada at was formally known as the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Final Act of CSCE contained detailed provisions on respect for human rights and set country borders that essentially held until Russia invaded Ukraine in February,2022. Only 15 years after the summit signing, the Soviet Union imploded and its Eastern European satellites broke with Communism and the broad range of human rights issues -civil, social, economic, and political - were a major factor in this historic turning point. Peter L.W. Osnos' expertise on the history of the accords is vast, as a journalist and publisher. His narrative writing skill is widely recognized. Holly Cartner provides a vivid account of how a small organization called Helsinki Watch became Human Rights Watch, the most important global NGO in its field.
Platform Books 2023-03 256 pages

Ashes and sparks: essays on law and justice

Sedley, Stephen
"As a practising barrister, the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Sedley wrote widely on legal and non-legal matters, and continued to do so after becoming a judge in 1992. This anthology contains classic articles, previously unpublished essays and lecture transcripts. To each, he has added reflections on what has transpired since or an explanation of the British legal and political context that originally prompted it. Covering the history, engineering and architecture of the justice system, their common theme relates to the author's experiences as a barrister and judge, most notably in relation to the constitutional changes which have emerged in the last twenty years in the United Kingdom"--
Cambridge University Press 2011-02-24 425 pages

Human rights law and practice

Anthony Paul Lester Baron Lester of Herne Hill,David Pannick,Javan Herberg
This third edition of Lester, Pannick and Herberg: Human Rights Law and Practice has been substantially re-written to take account of the major changes which have occurred in this area of the law. It includes not only a summary of European and UK human rights law but also wider international and comparative case law. It places this subject within its wider parliamentary context and connects with other jurisdictions.Up-to-date as of March 2009 to include the very latest cases, such as the judgment of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in A v United Kingdom (finding that the United Kingdom was in breach of the Convention by detaining terrorist suspects without trial in Belmarsh Prison); judgment of the Court of Appeal in Purdy v DPP (how Convention rights apply in the context of a possible criminal prosecution of a man who assists his seriously ill wife to travel to Switzerland to commit suicide); and the House of Lords' judgment in RB (Algeria) v SSHD (considering risk of Art 3 ill-treatment on return and the return state's assurances, and Art 6 in connection with the removed person's right to a fair trial).Issues arising under the Human Rights Act, such as freedom of expression, conscience and belief, freedom of assembly and fair trial receive comprehensive treatment within the text. International Human Rights codes and comparative human rights law elsewhere in the Commonwealth, Ireland and the United States are also discussed. With specific chapters analysing the political history and the role of parliament in its conception and enforcement, this practical book covers all the information you need to interpret the Human Rights Act 1998 and this complicated area of law.Includes coverage on the UK government's Green Paper, Rights and Responsibilities: Developing Our Constitutional Framework.
LexisNexis 2009 974 pages

Palestine The Legitimacy of Hope

Richard Falk
This is an advance review copy not for sale or further distribution.Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope is Prof. Falk's first major publication since he completed his term as Special Rapporteur. In it, he gathers and presents the best of the essays on Palestine that he published on his personal blog in the years 2010-2014, with added commentary that provides a rich meta-narrative to the collection. Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope powerfully shows how in recent years the Palestinians' struggle for rights and equality has become transformed into a "legitimacy struggle" of the kind that resulted in victory for many (but not all) of the most important other anti-colonial movements of the past century. Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope follows eleven other path-breaking works on the intersection of law, rights, and society that Prof. Falk has authored. In Spring 2015, Just World Books will be publishing a companion volume that presents the essays he has written during this same tumultuous period about the rest of the Middle East, including Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Turkey.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2014-07-04 238 pages

The Widening Circle of Genocide: Genocide - A Critical Bibliographic Review

Charny, Israel W.
This important study introduces the conceptual premise that families, like firms, analyze their circumstances, make decisions, and pursue courses of action on the basis of what they perceive to be the most efficient methods for producing and reproducing survival. Combining this premise with an extraordinary assemblage of facts gleaned over the period of a decade from the streets, markets and homes of Port-au-Prince, the author weaves a tapestry of despair and hope which only an unusual degree of intimacy with the details of everyday life in the city could provide. The result is a considerable deepening of understanding about the politics and economics by which family members earn their livelihoods, distribute resources within and between households, produce life and labor from food and water, provide shelter and schooling for themselves, and borrow money to finance these and other activities.These different dimensions of daily existence form a web of interdependency in which change in any one dimension causes change in all the others. As Professor Pass's work demonstrates, research and development assistance practices of public and private organizations, in such areas as employment, health, housing, education and credit are often irrelevant. This is because they are necessarily guided by prevailing concepts and theories with respect to the circumstances of the urban poor, which sometimes do the poor considerable disservice.With the additional insight provided by a decade of participation in the design of policies, programs and projects serving as a tempering influence, the author does not leap to easy criticism of prevailing views and practices. He notes that ideas and interventions change in response to new understanding, sometimes in ways that the producers of such understanding could never have imagined. The problem is that change is painfully slow, and in desperately poor countries like Haiti, waiting for change exacts an almost intolerable pric
Routledge 2018-04-16 375 pages

Human dignity: the constitutional value and the constitutional right

Barak, Aharon
"The concept of human dignity has a 2500 year history. As it moved through history, the concept was been influenced by different religions which held it as an important component of their theological approach. It was also influenced by the views of philosophers who developed human dignity in their contemplations. In the 20th century, the concept encountered a new phenomenon. The atrocities of the Second World War, and particularly the Holocaust of the Jewish people, brought human dignity into the forefront of legal discourse. As a result, constitutional and international legal texts began to adopt the concept, and jurists appeared alongside the theologians and the philosophers. Legal scholars were called upon to determine the theoretical basis of human dignity as a constitutional value and as a constitutional right. Judges were required to solve practical problems created by the constitutionalization of human dignity, as a value or as a right"--
Cambridge University Press 2015-01-29 360 pages

The Naked God The Writer and the Communist Party

Howard Fast
2020 Reprint of the 1957 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Howard Fast (1914-2003) was one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century. He was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. The son of immigrants, Fast grew up in New York City and published his first novel upon finishing high school in 1933. In 1950, his refusal to provide the United States Congress with a list of possible Communist associates earned him a three-month prison sentence. During his incarceration, Fast wrote one of his best-known novels, Spartacus (1951). Throughout his long career, Fast matched his commitment to championing social justice in his writing with a deft, lively storytelling style. In The Naked God the well-known author tells of his disillusionment with Communism and his subsequent break with the Party. The book is Howard Fast's public repudiation of the Communist Party, of which he was a devoted member for thirteen years until reading about the full scope of atrocities committed by the Soviet Union under Stalin. As the bestselling author of Spartacus and Citizen Tom Paine, Howard Fast lent his writing talents and celebrity to the communist cause as a steadfast advocate and public figure. However, he felt increasingly ill at ease with the superior manner Party leaders took with rank-and-file members and with rumors of Soviet anti-Semitism. In The Naked God, his first book after officially leaving the Party in 1956, Howard Fast explores the reasons he joined and his long inner struggle with a political movement in which he never felt he truly belonged.
Martino Fine Books 2020-11-03 206 pages