A comprehensive insight into the valuable work carried out by one of the Council of Europe’s highly influential mechanisms, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT).Since its inception in 1989, specialist members of the CPT (lawyers, prosecutors, prison experts, doctors, psychiatrists, etc.) have visited thousands of police stations, prisons, immigration detention centres, psychiatric hospitals and o...

Have New Zealanders found paradise? Few would deny the magnificence of New Zealand's landscape; from its secluded bays, and numerous tranquil lakes to its glaciers and the soaring majesty of the Southern Alps, it is always surprising. As the Maori have always attested their country is more than simply what can be seen. It is also its ancestral history, legends, fauna and even its sea life. Travels with Suzy, Doc and Ella is ostensibly the account of two journeys around New Zealand. Though ...

The Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) establishes an independent international monitoring committee (SPT) which itself will visit states and places where persons are deprived of their liberty. It also requires states to set up independent national bodies to visit places of detention. This book, drawing upon events held and interviews with governments, civil society, members of UN treaty bodies, national visiting bodies and others, identifies key factors that ha...

How is the international responsibility of the European Union determined? In the context of the multilayered and ever evolving Union legal order, the Lisbon Treaty has introduced considerable changes to the Union's participation in international affairs. These have rendered this thorny question an even more pressing concern not only for the European Union and its Member States but also for third countries and international organisations.Based on papers delivered at the bi-annual EU...

The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, as proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1981, is the only universal human rights instrument specifically focusing on religious intolerance and discrimination. However, recent years have seen increasing controversy surrounding this right, in both political and legal contexts. The European Court of Human Rights has experienced a vast expansion in the number of cas...

As religion has become more visible in public life, with closer relations of co-operation with government as well as a force in some political campaigns, its place in public life has become more contested. Fudged compromises of the past are giving way to a desire for clear lines and moral principles. This book brings the disciplines of law, sociology, politics and theology into conversation with one anther to shed light on the questions thrown up by 'religion in a liberal state'. It discus...

In Praise of Doubt explores how to survive the political, moral, and religious challenges raised by the extreme poles of relativism and fundamentalism.In this insightful and thought-provoking book, two world-renowned social scientists, Peter L. Berger and Anton C. Zijderveld, ask and answer Big Questions, offering invaluable guidance on how to have convictions without becoming a fanatic."A book of great practical wisdom by authors who have pr...

International Relations and International Law have developed in parallel but distinctly throughout the 20th Century. However in recent years there has been recognition that their shared concerns in areas as diverse as the environment, transnational crime and terrorism, human rights and conflict resolution outweigh their disciplinary and methodological divergences.This concise and accessible volume focuses on collaborative work within the disciplines of international law and interna...

The concept of law lies at the heart of our social and political life. Legal philosophy, or jurisprudence, explores the notion of law and its role in society, illuminating its meaning and its relation to the universal questions of justice, rights, and morality. In this Very Short Introduction Raymond Wacks analyses the nature and purpose of the legal system, and the practice by courts, lawyers, and judges. Wacks reveals the intriguing and challenging nature of legal philosophy wit...

The notion of "the public sphere" has become increasingly central to theories and studies of democracy, media, and culture over the last few decades. It has also gained political importance in the context of the European Union's efforts to strengthen democracy, integration, and identity.The Idea of the Public Sphere offers a wide-ranging, accessible, and easy-to-use introduction to one of the most influential ideas in modern social and political thought, tracing its develop...

European Labour Law explores how individual European national legal systems, in symbiosis with the European Union, produce a transnational labour law system that is distinct and genuinely European in character. Professor Brian Bercusson describes the evolution of this system, its national, transnational and global contexts and its institutional and substantive structures. The collective industrial-relations dimension of employment is examined, and the labour law of the EU as manifested in,...

George Grant's magnificent four-part meditation sums up much that is central to his own thought, including a critique of modern liberalism, an analysis of John Rawls's Theory of Justice, and insights into the larger Western philosophical tradition. This edition contains an introduction by Grant scholar Dr Robin Lathangue.