Human Rights Brought Home: Socio-Legal Perspectives of Human Rights in the National Context

Description

What practical impact does the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law have? This collection of essays explores human rights in domestic legal systems. The enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1998, ushering the European Convention on Human Rights fully into UK law, represented a landmark in the UK constitutional order. Other European states similarly have elevated the status of human rights in their domestic legal systems. However, whilst much has been written about doctrinal legal developments, little is yet known about the empirical effects of bringing rights home. This collection of essays, written by a range of distinguished socio-legal scholars, seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge. The essays, presenting new empirical research, begin their enquiry where many studies in human rights finish. The contributors do not stop at the recognition of international law and norms by states, but penetrate the internal workings of domestic legal systems to see the law in action - as it is developed, contested, manipulated, or even ignored by actors such as judges, lawyers, civil servants, interest groups, and others. This distinctly socio-legal approach offers a unique contribution to the literature on human rights, exploring human rights law-in-action in developed countries. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of looking beyond grand generalities and the hopes of international human rights law in order to understand the impact of the global human rights movement.

Simon Halliday is the Nicholas de B Katzenbach Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University. Patrick Schmidt is Assistant Professor in Political Science at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

...the primary point of this book is...to show the utility of socio-legal scholarship in the areas of human rights. On this score the book succeeds and it must be hoped that the book will encourage human rights and socio-legal scholars to collaborate... -- Robert Cryer, University of Nottingham * Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 5, No. 1 * ...excellent chapters by Reza Banakar and Jacqueline Hodgson...the quality of the individual chapters...[ensures] that the purpose of the volume...is...fulfilled. -- Emma McClean, University of Hull * European Public Law, Vol 11, Issue 3 * ...an exemplary piece of socio-legal research...measured and thoughtful conclusions...a valuable contribution to the scholarship of human rights, in which it fills a significant gap. -- John O'Dowd, University College Dublin * Public Law * ...a welcome addition to the growing literature on the interplay between international and domestic rights... This book provides a fine regional case study of rights internalization. -- Christopher Waters, School of Law, University of Reading * Law and Politics Book Review *