Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to respect for one's private life. The European Court of Human Rights has interpreted this provision broadly to include a right to personal autonomy, identity and integrity. The book examines these concepts by interconnecting case law from the Court with the philosophical debates, including those in feminism, in four parts: (1) personal freedom and human rights law (2) privacy and personal autonomy (3) personal identity (4) bodily and moral integrity. The author notes, through her analysis of the Court's case law, that...

One of the far-reaching changes in the past century is the rapid growth of international organizations. International organizations are instruments for institutionalized co-operation among states; however, they also generate growing risks to other actors in the international system. The increased activity of international organizations may lead, naturally, to an infringement of the rights of others and the infliction of damage upon them. In such cases the question arises of which legal principles apply to the relations between the wrongdoer organization and the victims of its activity. This...

The human and political problems presented by refugees and asylum are acute and are not improving. This is reflected in international concern and the existence of a treaty framework. The emergent body of refugee law is an amalgam of international, regional and national rules and procedures. But it is national law and practice, particularly with regard to immigration, which in reality determines an individual's right to asylum. The key to a true appreciation and understanding of the plight of refugees and the extent of their current rights therefore lies in national law and practice.

As the world approaches the end of the twentieth century it becomes clear that the global legal system governing relations between the members of the international community is passing through a period of profound change. The traditional lawmaking techniques, established largely at the beginning of this century, were constituted so as to provide for only gradual reforms within a limited and homogeneous community of states. Faced with a growing number of global problems, the international community has discovered that the traditional legal system lacks effective procedures for rapid generation...

The reason of State plays an important role under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Not only does Article 15 authorize States to take measures derogating from their obligations under the Convention in time of war or other public emergency, threatening the life of the nation'; most of the rights and liberties defined in the Convention are subject to escape clauses as well. This book demonstrates first that the system' of the Convention is much more ambiguous than could have been expected. Secondly, it shows, on the basis of study carried out...

In this book Philip E. Veerman presents and discusses milestones in the evolution of children's rights, as well as the work of a number of important pioneers in this field in order to examine whether the concept of childhood has changed in our century. With Samuel Shye's Systemic Quality of Life Model' as a conceptual framework and uniform standard, more than forty Declarations and Conventions are analysed and compared. Veerman thus unfolds an exciting picture of the changing image of childhood, starting at the beginning of this century and culminating in the United Nations Convention on the...

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the topic of the Rights of the Child as reflected in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It reviews all decisions of the Inter-American Court relating to the Rights of the Child and analyses the principles held therein making them available to practitioners, academics and students of this area of the law.

This volume is a collection of essays dealing primarily with supervision by international organizations of, on the one hand, state behaviour and, on the other, the conduct of the organizations themselves. The first is termed external supervision, the second internal supervision. An extensive range of international organizations is covered, among them the ILO, the IMF, GATT and the United Nations.

Following the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the events of 11 September 2001, awareness of international crimes has come to the forefront of public consciousness. The very public responses seen in the establishment by the Security Council of the ad hoc tribunals and the international community coming together to create the International Criminal Court have done much to promote the idea that there should be no impunity for international criminals. Nevertheless, while those are incredibly significant steps in the attempt to combat international crime, there is no way due to their...