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While good governance is mainly pursued in a development context, it is a central message of the book that good governance guidelines ought to have universal applicability, affecting international organisations and public and private actors in Northern as well as Southern countries. Yet an established consensus does not exist on how good governance and human rights can or should complement each other. The book therefore assesses the advantages of using existing links and identifies ways of building new bridges for mutual support between governance and human rights.
The authors examine their topics on the basis of theory, best practices, law, the experiences of societies undergoing democratic transition, and other empirical evidence, without attempting to come up with a common definition of good governance. The plurality of interpretations will hopefully further strengthen good governance and human rights as integral elements of a global agenda.
While good governance is mainly pursued in a development context, it is a central message of the book that good governance guidelines ought to have universal applicability, affecting international organisations and public and private actors in Northern as well as Southern countries. Yet an established consensus does not exist on how good governance and human rights can or should complement each other. The book therefore assesses the advantages of using existing links and identifies ways of building new bridges for mutual support between governance and human rights.
The authors examine their topics on the basis of theory, best practices, law, the experiences of societies undergoing democratic transition, and other empirical evidence, without attempting to come up with a common definition of good governance. The plurality of interpretations will hopefully further strengthen good governance and human rights as integral elements of a global agenda.
Yet, today, actions, statements and initiatives questioning the legitimacy and validity of human rights, or even threatening their very existence, have become a regular part of current political realities, even in states traditionally dedicated to the rule of law. This would have been inconceivable ten or twenty years ago. At the political level human rights are gaining as well as losing ground.
The question of the adequacy, legitimacy and scope of human rights is still a live one. And weaknesses in supra-national human rights protection systems have emerged over the last twenty years. It is now clear that human rights mechanisms are not well adapted to the handling of the ever-increasing number of complaints or to the effective implementation of human rights.
This thought-provoking collection of essays by leading scholars and practitioners in the field of human rights explores the ways in which human rights are currently being challenged and weakened, but also strengthened in important and groundbreaking ways in different areas and settings. They explore the many current debates which centre on human rights concerns: debates about secularism and religious norms, about minimum social standards and social security, about the future regulation of citizenship, about prison reform and the use of less inhumane methods of detention; as well as the reform of the UN system and the challenges facing the now overburdened European Court of Human Rights.
Yet, today, actions, statements and initiatives questioning the legitimacy and validity of human rights, or even threatening their very existence, have become a regular part of current political realities, even in states traditionally dedicated to the rule of law. This would have been inconceivable ten or twenty years ago. At the political level human rights are gaining as well as losing ground.
The question of the adequacy, legitimacy and scope of human rights is still a live one. And weaknesses in supra-national human rights protection systems have emerged over the last twenty years. It is now clear that human rights mechanisms are not well adapted to the handling of the ever-increasing number of complaints or to the effective implementation of human rights.
This thought-provoking collection of essays by leading scholars and practitioners in the field of human rights explores the ways in which human rights are currently being challenged and weakened, but also strengthened in important and groundbreaking ways in different areas and settings. They explore the many current debates which centre on human rights concerns: debates about secularism and religious norms, about minimum social standards and social security, about the future regulation of citizenship, about prison reform and the use of less inhumane methods of detention; as well as the reform of the UN system and the challenges facing the now overburdened European Court of Human Rights.