How do we understand and justify the particular partialities that discrimination law tries to protect against? Are different discrimination laws from around the world grounded in a single set of norms? And does discrimination law fail to treat people as individuals? The philosophical study around discrimination law in the private and public sector is a relatively young field of inquiry. This is owing to the fact that anti-discrimination laws are relatively new. It is arguably only since th...

Paul Toohey searches for the solution our politicians have been unwilling or unable to find, and asks whether, amid the diplomatic turmoil, we’ve now missed our chance.Tony Abbott promised to stop the boats. With the help of Kevin Rudd's 'PNG solution,' he has. But at what cost?In Quarterly Essay 53, Paul Toohey tells the dramatic stories of asylum seekers heading from Java to Australia, investigates people-smuggling and witnesses the aftermath of a sinki...

Contemporary political and legal theory typically justifies the value of political and legal institutions on the grounds that such institutions bring about desirable outcomes - such as justice, security, and prosperity. In the popular imagination, however, many people seem to value public institutions for their own sake. The idea that political and legal institutions might be intrinsically valuable has received little philosophical attention. Why Law Matters presents the argument ...

From the head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and noted professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, a groundbreaking book that examines both civil and criminal court cases from the Civil War to the present, to reveal the impact of stereotyping--race, class, gender--on the American legal system.The question Mary Frances Berry asks: Whose story most strongly influences the making of legal decisions in the American justice system? Using previously unexamined ma...

Jason Hunter's dwindling bank account is a daily reminder that Jason never should have left his job at a prestigious law firm to start his own practice, a solo shop located in uncomfortable proximity to a strip club. Hope arrives in the form of Maggie Moxley, a legal assistant who tearfully claims that Robert Spelkin III—her boss, and the office's most profitable partner—sexually assaulted her at work. Looking to transform Moxley's misfortune into profits, Jason takes on Spelkin and his po...

Over the past decade, a global convergence in migration policies has emerged, and with it a new, mean-spirited politics of immigration. It is now evident that the idea of a settler society, previously an important landmark in understanding migration, is a thing of the past. What are the consequences of this shift for how we imagine immigration? And for how we regulate it? This book analyzes the dramatic shift away from the settler society paradigm in light of the crisis of asylum, the fear...

The principle of proportionality, which has become the standard test for adjudicating human and constitutional rights disputes in jurisdictions worldwide has had few critics. Proportionality is generally taken for granted or enthusiastically promoted or accepted with minor qualifications. A Critique of Proportionality and Balancing presents a frontal challenge to this orthodoxy. It provides a comprehensive critique of the proportionality principle, and particularly of its most characterist...

Jeremy Waldron has been a challenging and influential voice in the moral, political and legal debates surrounding the response to terrorism since 9/11. His contributions have spanned the major controversies of the War on Terror - including the morality and legality of torture, whether security can be 'balanced' with liberty, and the relationship between public safety and individual rights. He has also tackled underlying questions essential to understanding the practical debates - including...

In the decades following the globalization of the world economy, trafficking, forced labor and modern slavery have emerged as significant global problems. States negotiated the Palermo Protocol in 2000 under which they agreed to criminalize trafficking, primarily understood as an issue of serious organized crime. Sixteen years later, leading academics, activists and policy makers from international organizations come together in this edited volume and adopt an inter-disciplinary, multi-sta...

This collection explores and illustrates issues arising from ‘political’ approaches to human rights in contrast to the more traditional ‘moral’ approaches. Moral approaches conceptualize and justify human rights in terms of priority rights which are both universal and moral. In contrast, political approaches focus on those human rights practices involved in the development and operation of human rights institutions, laws and political process, all in relative independence from their allege...

Against the recent backdrop of sociopolitical crisis, radical thinking and activism to challenge the oppressive operation of power has increased. Such thinkers and activists have aimed for radical social transformation in the sense of challenging dominant ways of viewing the world, including the neoliberal illusion of improving the welfare of all while advancing the interests of only some. However, a question mark has remained over the utility of human rights in this activity and the capab...

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been incarcerated on Pennsylvania's death row for over two decades. His case has generated more controversy and received more attention, both national and international, than that of any other inmate currently under sentence of death in the United States of America.Mumia Abu Jamal, black, was convicted and sentenced to death in July 1982 for the murder of white police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. He has steadfastly maintained his innocence. Since ...