Women’s access to and enjoyment of human rights are increasingly being used as a global measure of other “goods” in societies: for instance as a measure of development, a gauge of the health and depth of democracy and as a general indicator of a state commitment and adherence to international responsibilities. Therefore, while the study of women’s relationship to human rights is of considerable importance and interest in itself it is also gaining prominence across a range of other areas of international and domestic law. This might be viewed as a positive indication of the growing strength of women’s human rights norms but it bears closer analysis. Also within this discourse on women’s rights what rights norms are being globalised and how is this occurring? This paper considers how supposedly universalist rhetorics around equality rights can advance ‘orientalist’ and patriarchal discourses in relation to who “women” are and how their rights may be realised. Such discourses may hinder implementation of women’s rights especially for women who are “other.” This is particularly evident in relation to women’s rights to freedom of expression, the manifestation of religious freedom and rights to participate in culture. To illustrate this specific focus is given to the increasing discrimination against Muslim women and to human rights responses in this context within [...]
On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights (UDHR) the Commonwealth Attorney General announced a national public consultation concerning the need for better human rights protection in Australia and the viability of a federal human rights charter. Whether or not the anticipated Charter includes social, economic and cultural rights is directly relevant to questions of social justice in Australia. This paper argues that the legislative acknowledgment of civil and political rights alone will not adequately address the human rights problems that are experienced in Australia. The reluctance to include economic, social and cultural rights in human rights legislation stems from the historical construction of an artificial distinction between civil and political rights, and economic social and cultural rights. This distinction was articulated and embedded in law with the translation of the UDHR into binding international law. It has been accepted and replicated in judicial consideration of the application on human rights legislation at the domestic level. The distinction between the two forms of rights underpins a general ambivalence about the capacity of human rights legislation to deliver social justice and echoes a critical tradition in legal philosophy that cautions against the reification of law. Coming into force early in the 21st century, the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities illustrates the effort of the international community to recognize and eschew the burden of the false dichotomy between civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights. Acknowledging the indivisible, interdependent and indissociable nature of human rights in Australia is a crucial step toward achieving human rights based social [...]
An Italian prosecution against Google made the headlines again this week (New York Times, Bloomberg) with the news that prosecutors in Milan are pushing for three Google executives and one former executive to be sentenced to terms of imprisonment for their failure promptly to take down an offensive video from the Italian-language Google Video service [...]
The latest on the STLR radar:
U.S. says butt out: U.S. Senators criticize EU Commission over delay of Oracle-Sun deal. (See our deal cheat sheet here.)
Verizon stakes its claim as the nation’s most ironic network: A week after a court called its “There’s a Map For That” advertisements “sneaky,” but not misleading (catch up here), Verizon [...]
Context
This Economist’s Note considers the use of state aid policy in Europe to control the flow of public funds to the banking sector during the financial crisis, and the potential implications of so doing.
Key points
During the financial crisis, state aid decisions have had to prioritise saving financial institutions over distortions to competition. But post-crisis, saving institutions is not the same as saving the financial system. The more stable the financial system becomes, the easier it is for state aid control to take a tough approach to aided banks.
Practical significance
Looking forward, as aid is unwound there is a policy choice to be made whether to prioritise competition in the single market (by coordinating withdrawal of aid) or to prioritise competition within national markets (by removing state support as and when local conditions [...]
