The basis of human rights remains in need of exploration. The effectiveness of the language of human rights is threatened by its widespread but uncritical use. This book is neither a sermon to believers nor an attack by a skeptic. It is a critical look at the basis of those few rights that are genuinely universal, for example, a right not to be tortured or a right to basic subsistence. A human right is a claim that every human being can make on the whole human race. The rights that are specifically human arise from a human respect for all living beings. There is still a widespread assumption that "human rights" is just another name for the confused idea of "natural rights" from the eighteenth century, rights that were promulgated by and for adult white males. The authors of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 assumed that they were reformulating an old idea. Instead, they were beginning a new idea. Human rights can be realized only through conversations across differences within gender, age, culture and religion. This book traces those continuing conversations that fill out the diversity within the unity of the human race. The convergence of many particular traditions creates a human tradition that can sustain human rights as a standard of moral conduct for all nations.

European Convention on Human Rights – Article 10 – Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. In the context of an effective democracy and respect for human rights mentioned in the Preamble to the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom of expression is not only important in its own right, but it also plays a central part in the protection of other rights under the Convention. Without a broad guarantee of the right to freedom of expression protected by independent and impartial courts, there is no free country, there is no democracy. This general proposition is undeniable. This handbook is a practical tool for legal professionals from Council of Europe member states who wish to strengthen their skills in applying the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in their daily work.

As a classic text of the New Haven School of International Law, this book explores human rights and international law in the broadest sense, taking into account social sciences research while embracing all values secured, or consequently fulfilled, or needed to thus be achieved. The re-issuance of this venerable title, unveils this work to a new generation of scholars, students, and practitioners of international law and human rights.

Has there always been an inalienable 'right to have rights' as part of the human condition, as Hannah Arendt famously argued? The contributions to this volume examine how human rights came to define the bounds of universal morality in the course of the political crises and conflicts of the twentieth century. Although human rights are often viewed as a self-evident outcome of this history, the essays collected here make clear that human rights are a relatively recent invention that emerged in contingent and contradictory ways. Focusing on specific instances of their assertion or violation during the past century, this volume analyzes the place of human rights in various arenas of global politics, providing an alternative framework for understanding the political and legal dilemmas that these conflicts presented. In doing so, this volume captures the state of the art in a field that historians have only recently begun to explore.

This carefully selected and integrated series of discourses on the central issues of political life presents Robert M. MacIver's views on ethics and politics, society and the state, government and political change, war and peace, and the conditions of a viable international order. It is both a key to the astonishing scope and versatility of MacIver's mind and a major contribution to political thought.Politics and Society elucidates some of the major themes and essential problems of political theory. Here are incisive essays on the nature of understanding in social and political science; on the discontinuities between ethics and politics that render difficult, yet imperative, the ordering of a multigroup society; and on the ever-present tensions between liberty and authority, private interests and the common good. Here too are MacIver's assessments of the forces that make for social change and the transformations requisite to the establishment of a viable international order. And here, with sensitivity and wisdom, are MacIver's articulations of relevant ends and their realization through appropriate means.David Spitz provided a lengthy introduction to this volume on its first publication in 1969 assessing the importance of MacIver's teachings as well as relating these essays within the broader context of MacIver's political and social thought. The republication of this collection now attests to Spitz's conclusion:"The rewards that await the reader of these essays support my conviction that MacIver's eminent achievements, in both method and vision, stamp him as the most distinguished of our social and political theorists." Robert M. MacIver (1882-1970) was Lieber Professor of Political Philosophy and Sociology at Columbia University (1929-1950) and held many other academic posts, directorships and honorary degrees, and in 1962 came out of retirement to be chancellor of the New School for Social Research. Among his most important books were Social Causation and Community, a Sociological Study.David Spitz was professor of political science at Columbia University. He was the author among other books of The Liberal Idea of Freedom. The David and Elaine Spitz Prize is awarded every year for the best book in liberal and/or democratic theory by the International Conference for the Study of Political Thought in his honor.