Humanity across International Law and Biolaw

Description

The concepts of humanity, human dignity and mankind have emerged in different contexts across international law and biolaw. This raises many different questions. What are the aims for which 'humanity' is mobilised? How do these aims affect the ensuing interpretations of this concept? What are the negative counterparts of humanity, mankind and human dignity? And what happens if a concept developed in one particular context is taken up in another? By bringing together research from international law, biolaw and legal theory, this volume answers such questions by analysing how the concepts overlap and contradict each other across the disciplines. The result is not an examination of what humanity is but rather what it does and what it brings about in a variety of contexts.

Britta van Beers is an assistant professor in the Department of Legal Theory at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, where her research and teaching involve the legal-philosophical aspects of biomedical regulation. Luigi Corrias is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, within the Boundaries of Law research programme. His research deals with community and identity in the European and international legal order. Wouter Werner is Professor of Public International Law at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He is also Programme Director of the research group Boundaries of Law, chair of the COST Action on the constitutionalization of international law and co-founder of the Center for the Politics of Transnational Law at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.