International human rights law grants individuals both rights and responsibilities. In this respect international criminal and international humanitarian law are no different. As members of the public international law family they are charged with the regulation, maintenance and protection of human dignity. The right and duty to disobey manifestly illegal orders traverses these three schools of public international law. This book is the first systematic study of the right to conscientious objection under international human rights law. Understanding that rights and duties are not mutually exclusive but complementary, this study analyses the right to conscientious objection and the duties of individuals under international law from various perspectives of public international law.

Historically associated with military service, conscientious objection has become a significant phenomenon in health care. Mark Wicclair offers a comprehensive ethical analysis of conscientious objection in three representative health care professions: medicine, nursing and pharmacy. He critically examines two extreme positions: the 'incompatibility thesis', that it is contrary to the professional obligations of practitioners to refuse provision of any service within the scope of their professional competence; and 'conscience absolutism', that they should be exempted from performing any action contrary to their conscience. He argues for a compromise approach that accommodates conscience-based refusals within the limits of specified ethical constraints. He also explores conscientious objection by students in each of the three professions, discusses conscience protection legislation and conscience-based refusals by pharmacies and hospitals, and analyzes several cases. His book is a valuable resource for scholars, professionals, trainees, students, and anyone interested in this increasingly important aspect of health care.

Explores the multifaceted debate on the interconnection between conscientious objections, religious liberty, and the equality of women and sexual minorities.

As the tensions involving religion and society increase, the European Court of Human Rights and the Freedom of Religion or Belief is the first systematic analysis of the first twenty-five years of the European Court's religion jurisprudence. The Court is one of the most significant institutions confronting the interactions among states, religious groups, minorities, and dissenters. In the 25 years since its first religion case, Kokkinakis v. Greece, the Court has inserted itself squarely into the international human rights debate regarding the freedom of religion or belief. The authors demonstrate the positive contributions and the significant flaws of the Court's jurisprudence involving religion, society, and secularism.

This book provides a multidisciplinary and comparative look at the contemporary phenomenon of conscientious objection or contestation in the name of religion and examines the key issues that emerge in terms of citizenship and democracy. These are analysed by looking at the different ways of challenging or contesting a legal obligation on the grounds of religious beliefs and convictions. The authors focus on the meaning of conscientious objection which asserts the legitimacy of convictions — in particular religious convictions — in determining the personal or collective relevance of the law and of public action. The book begins by examining the main theoretical issues underlying conscientious objection, exploring the implications of the protection of freedom of conscience, the place of religion in the secular public sphere, and the recognition and respect of ethical pluralism in society. It then focuses on the question of exemptions and contestations of civil norms, using a multidisciplinary approach to highlight the multiple and diverse issues surrounding them, as well as the motives behind them. This book will be of great interest to scholars, specialists, and graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in issues of religious diversity. Researchers and policymakers in think-tanks, NGOs and government units will find the volume useful in helping to identify key issues in understanding the phenomenon of conscientious objection and its implications in managing ethical diversity in contemporary societies.

The book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection. Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness (CPC). According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private 'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing. The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience. Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished. Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence.

Refusing to take part in war is as old as war itself. This wide-ranging and original book brings together four different bodies of knowledge to examine the practice of conscientious objection: historical and philosophical analyses of conscientious objection as a critique of compulsory military service and militarization; feminist, LGBT and queer analyses of conscientious objection as a critique of patriarchy, sexism, and heterosexism; activist and academic analyses of conscientious objection as a social movement and individual act of resistance; legal analyses of the status of conscientious objection in international and national law. Conscientious objection is an increasingly important subject of academic and political debate in countries including the US, Israel and Turkey. This book provides a much needed introduction and tool for making sense of the history of nation-states in the 20th century and understanding the political developments of the early 21st century.