ABSTRACT

This volume offers snapshots of how rights are debated and employed in public discourse to reshape legal and political relations at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It explores how rights are used to challenge the state of affairs by individuals and groups who seek justice, and the strategies devised to defy the existing rights by those who wish to recast the social and political order. This volume discusses rights, firstly, in relation to actual events and issues faced by policy-makers, courts, international agencies, or ordinary people. These range from the demands of minority groups living in the West to freely practice their culture and/or religion, to the threat of terrorism, the regulation of asylum rights, the investor's rights to disclosure and the rights of artists to freedom of expression. Secondly, rights discourse is examined in relation to attempts to redefine the form and content of rights, for example, by banning the right to wear religious symbols in public institutions or detaining terrorism suspects without trial. Thirdly, rights discourse is explored in connection with the attempts to develop new notions of rights, such as 'human security', which can more effectively respond to the challenges of late modern societies. Finally, the statuses of rights in sociological theory and socio-legal research are briefly discussed and analysed.

chapter |18 pages

Introduction

Snapshots of the Rights Discourse

chapter 1|20 pages

Law, Rights and Justice in Late Modern Society

A Tentative Theoretical Framework

part I|85 pages

The Critiques of Rights

chapter 2|14 pages

A Sociological Critique of Rights

chapter 3|16 pages

The ‘Rights' Conundrum

Poverty of Philosophy amidst Poverty

chapter 4|12 pages

Dangerous Rights

Of Citizens and Humans

chapter 5|14 pages

The Neglected Minority

The Penurious Human Rights of Artists

chapter 6|28 pages

Truth, Myth and Critical Theory

part II|87 pages

The Challenges of Rights

chapter 7|20 pages

Defacing Muslim Women

Dialectical Meanings of Dress in the Body Politic

chapter 8|16 pages

Beyond the Sacred and Secular

Muslim Women, the Law and the Delivery of Justice

chapter 9|14 pages

The Right to be Different

The Position of Muslim Migrants in the Netherlands

chapter 10|16 pages

It's Not about Free Expression

A Sociological Examination of the Danish Cartoon Controversy

part III|61 pages

The Strategies of Rights

chapter 13|22 pages

‘Terrorist Lists' and Procedural Human Rights

A Collision between UN Law, EU Law and Strasbourg Law?

chapter 14|22 pages

Human Security and International Law

Much Ado about Nothing?

part IV|73 pages

The Reconstruction of Rights

chapter 15|23 pages

Rights and Diverse Effects in EU Law

A Hohfeldian Approach to the Doctrine of Direct Effect of Directives

chapter 16|16 pages

Investor's Rights to Disclosure of Complex Financial Instruments

A Risk Symmetric Analysis

chapter 17|16 pages

Women, Culture and Human Rights

Feminist Interventions in Human Rights Law?

chapter 18|16 pages

Rights and Responsibilities 1