"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

This article examines the following questions: Is there a human right to food and water in the international sphere? Is it possible to derive such human rights as “general principles of law” within the meaning of public international law, which are independent from contractual agreement or recognition by States? What exactly would such a right to food and water comprise? Is there a constitutional rank relationship evolving between human rights and public international law (...) which might affect the interpretation of, e. g., WTO law? How can conflicting considerations be balanced? (shrink)

ABSTRACTFast food chains such as McDonald's, KFC, and Burger King are major players in the production, marketing, and consumption of animal‐derived food throughout the world. Animal rights activists are quick to point out the link between the highly efficient factory farms that supply these chains and extreme animal cruelty and environmental degradation. Strategically, fast food is well positioned to leverage change in the methods by which animals are raised and processed for human consumption. Although progress (...) has been made as the fast food industry has responded to pressure exerted by animal rights organizations, there is little indication of true collaborative efforts that would harness the power of the market to bring about substantive changes in the way the consuming public views the issue of animal welfare and food production. (shrink)

The experience of the twentieth century bears witness to the abuse, mutilation and homicide of the vulnerable made possible by the power of the state, mass markets, and medical and financial interests. Suggestions for reform of the law regarding food and fluids typically take place in the context of utilitarian personistic “quality-of-life” presuppositions, and interests in shifting legal responsibility for life-and-death decisions, medical research, drug trials, organ harvesting as well as more mundane bureaucratic concerns like bed-clearing. With the Western (...) world undergoing massive demographic change and a growing ageing and non-productive population, it cannot be assumed that these alterations to the positive law are problem-free. By allowing new agents power to require that food and fluids be withdrawn, non-therapeutic research and other procedures (like abortion and sterilisation) be performed on non-consenting patients, novel legislation such as that discussed cannot be regarded as autonomy enhancing so much as a threat to human rights. These laws although touted as progressive, more often than not invite routine abuse and destruction of the vulnerable, obscure accountability and create an inconsistent body of law, with conflicting obligations for health professionals. (shrink)

Avoiding severe impacts from anthropogenic climate change requires not only substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions but also further implementation of adaptation measures. In many regions with smallholder farming systems adaptation can help ensure food security despite significantly changing climatic conditions. However, the space for adaptation measures has limits. In this paper, we investigate hard and soft adaptation limits and discuss their relevance to food security in smallholder farming food systems. We argue that soft adaptation limits can (...) be defined by sufficiency levels of justice like basic needs, capabilities, human rights or levels of well-being. Depending on social, cultural, political and economic conditions different communities realize different sufficiency levels of justice. Furthermore, as normative claims of justice, these sufficiency levels not only allow the social, cultural and political and economic conditions of social systems to be described but also define entitlements. We show that for smallholder farming systems with low social and economic standards these entitlements might mean that soft adaptation limits can define entitlements to social and economic improvements despite transformational adaptation to changing climatic conditions. (shrink)

The term food citizenship is defined as the practice of engaging in food-related behaviors that support, rather than threaten, the development of a democratic, socially and economically just, and environmentally sustainable food system. Ways to practice food citizenship are described and a role for universities in fostering food citizenship is suggested. Finally, four barriers to food citizenship are identified and described: the current food system, federal food and agriculture policy, local and institutional (...) policies, and the culture of professional nutrition organizations. (shrink)

Abstract Environmental and public health-focused sciences are increasingly characterised as constituting an emerging discipline—planetary medicine. From a governance perspective, the ethical components of that discipline may usefully be viewed as bestowing upon our ailing natural environment the symbolic moral status of a patient. Such components emphasise, for example, the origins and content of professional and social virtues and related ethical principles needed to promote global governance systems and policies that reduce ecological stresses and pathologies derived from human overpopulation, selfishness (...) and greed—such as pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as provide necessary energy, water and food security. Less well explored in this context, however, is the ethics that should underpin global use of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology as forms of planetary therapeutics. Nanotechnology may be particularly important, for instance, as a mechanism for improving upon photosynthesis and engineering it into human structures for localised production of carbon-neutral hydrogen based-fuel and carbohydrate-based food and fertilizer. Artificial photosynthesis, because of its unique and widespread public and environmental benefits in this period of human history, may even be termed the moral culmination of nanotechnology, assisting this planet to move beyond the Anthropocene epoch to that of the Sustainocene. This paper explores practical steps towards planetary nanomedicine involving governance of artificial photosynthesis, including a UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Bioethics and Human Rights of Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis (Global Solar Fuels and Foods ). Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0144-4 Authors Thomas Faunce, College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and College of Law (joint Appointment), Australian National University, Acton, Australia Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

The first IVF baby was born in the 1970s. Less than 20 years later, we had cloning and GM food, and information and communication technologies had transformed everyday life. In 2000, the human genome was sequenced. More recently, there has been much discussion of the economic and social benefits of nanotechnology, and synthetic biology has also been generating controversy. This important volume is a timely contribution to increasing calls for regulation - or better regulation - of these and (...) other new technologies. Drawing on an international team of legal scholars, it reviews and develops the role of human rights in the regulation of new technologies. Three controversies at the intersection between human rights and new technology are given particular attention. First, how the expansive application of human rights could contribute to the creation of a brave new world of choice, where human dignity is fundamentally compromised; second, how new technologies, and our regulatory responses to them, could be a threat to human rights; and, third, how human rights could be used to create better regulation of these technologies. (shrink)

The right to food is recognized as a basic right under international human rights law. The lack of implementation of the right is a challenge for societies around the world. The failures in implementation are leading stakeholder's to strongly advance more appropriate standards vis-a-vis the right to food. The concept of food sovereignty for instance has gained importance in this regard. The concept of food sovereignty is interpreted to be larger in scope than the (...) right to food. Food sovereignty is not limited to the making "provision" of food to the beneficiaries by the state. In addition, it also mandates the empowerment of communities by the adoption of policies to secure land, food production and consumption, etc. -/- In 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food recognized the wider import of the right to food based on the concept of food sovereignty. The Rapporteur emphasised on the provision of land for instance as essential to right to food. The acceptance of food sovereignty as a benchmark for state performance is one of the most notable developments in the field of economic, social and cultural rights. This chapter discusses the role of the concept of food sovereignty, and how it is shaping international and domestic policy frameworks. (shrink)

Medicine and its allied health sciences have for too long been peripherally involved in work on human rights. Fifty years ago, the door to greater involvement was opened by Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which underlined social and economic rights: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, (...) and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”. (shrink)

Medicine and its allied health sciences have for too long been peripherally involved in work on human rights. Fifty years ago, the door to greater involvement was opened by Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which underlined social and economic rights: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, (...) and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”. (shrink)

This article argues that hunger in Canada, while being an outcome of unemployment, low incomes, and inadequate welfare, springs also from the failure to recognize and implement the human right to food. Food security has, however, largely been ignored by progressive social policy analysis. Barriers standing in the way of achieving food security include the increasing commodification of welfare and the corporatization of food, the depoliticization of hunger by governments and the voluntary sector, and, most (...) particularly, the neglect by the federal and provincial governments of their obligations to guarantee the domestic right to food as expressed in international human rights law. The interconnectedness of hunger, welfare, and food security issues in a first world society are explored from the perspective of progressive social policy and food security analysis and the development of alternative strategies. In terms of advancing the human right to food in Canada, particular emphasis is placed on the role of the state and civil society, and the social and economic rights of citizenship built on an inclusive social policy analysis and politics of welfare, food security and human rights. (shrink)

The emerging concept of food sovereignty refers to the right of communities, peoples, and states to independently determine their own food and agricultural policies. It raises the question of which type of food production, agriculture and rural development should be pursued to guarantee food security for the world population. Social movements and non-governmental organizations have readily integrated the concept into their terminology. The concept is also beginning to find its way into the debates and policies of (...) UN organizations and national governments in both developing and industrialized countries. Beyond its relation to civil society movements little academic attention has been paid to the concept of food sovereignty and its appropriateness for international development policies aimed at reducing hunger and poverty, especially in comparison to the human right to adequate food (RtAF). We analyze, on the basis of an extensive literature review, the concept of food sovereignty with regard to its ability to contribute to hunger and poverty reduction worldwide as well as the challenges attached to this concept. Then, we compare the concept of food sovereignty with the RtAF and discuss the appropriateness of both concepts for national public sector policy makers and international development policies. We conclude that the impact on global food security is likely to be much greater if the RtAF approach predominated public policies. While the concept of food sovereignty may be appropriate for civil society movements, we recommend that the RtAF should obtain highest priority in national and international agricultural, trade and development policies. (shrink)

Background: Food is an important part of nursing care and recognized as a basic need and a human right. Nutritional care for older adults in institutions represents a particularly important area to address in nursing education and practice, as the right to food can be at risk and health personnel experience ethical challenges related to food and nutrition. Objective: The present study investigates the development of coursework on nutritional care with a human rights perspective (...) in a nursing programme for first-year nursing students and draws upon reflections and lessons learned. Research design: The study utilized educational design research. The coursework, developed through two rounds, combined on-campus learning and clinical placement in nursing homes. Nursing studentsʼ perspectives and experiences gathered through focus groups and a written assignment informed the development and evaluation of the coursework. Participants and research context: In the first round, multistage focus group interviews were conducted with 18 nursing students before, during and after placement. In the second round, four focus group interviews with 26 nursing students were conducted shortly after placement. Ethical consideration: The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Findings: Three main ʽlessons learnedʼ emerged regarding introducing a human rights perspective in nursing education: 1) the contribution of the human rights perspective in changing the narrative of ʽvulnerable and malnourished patientsʼ, 2) the importance of relationships and experiences for learning about human rights and 3) the benefit of combining development of ethical competence with a human rights perspective. Conclusion: A human rights perspective enabled the students to give meaning to nutritional care beyond understanding of food as a basic physical need. Incorporating human rights in nursing education can support nursing students and nurses in recognizing and addressing ethical and structural challenges and being able to fulfil the right to food for patients. (shrink)

This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Women's special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Women's identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a (...) human right requires that food issues be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food. (shrink)

The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination (...) of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. (shrink)

It has been proposed that the policies and practices of food sovereignty, unlike those of today's hegemonic food/agricultural system, provide the means for satisfying and safeguarding the right to food security for everyone everywhere. My principal objective in this article, which gains its significance in the light of an explanatory critique of the current system, is to explore how scientific research — using what kinds of methodologies, and building on experiences of what and of whom? — can (...) constructively inform these practices and policies, and contribute towards appraising this proposal. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between climate change and human rights. It argues that climate change is unjust, in part, because it jeopardizes several core rights – including the right to life, the right to food and the right to health. It then argues that adopting a human rights framework has six implications for climate policies. To give some examples, it argues that this helps us to understand the concept of “dangerous anthropogenic interference” (UNFCCC, (...) Article 2). In addition to this, it argues that if we adopt a human rights framework then any climate policies should also honour human rights, and so mitigation policies, for example, should not compromise people’s enjoyment of their human rights. A third implication, I argue, is that in addition to duties of mitigation and adaptation there will also be – if rights are violated – duties of compensation too. (shrink)

I argue that recognizing a human right to adequate food and enforcing it as a legal right is an important way to promote and ensure sustainable food security. I consider objections that have been raised against subsistence rights and socio-economic rights, including the argument that such rights are not feasible, that they are not justiciable, and that they are too amorphous—that it is not clear what is required to fulfill these rights and by (...) whom. I defend the right to adequate food against these objections by considering how this right has been interpreted and applied in international law and how it has been protected in other domestic legal systems. I analyze different dimensions of the right to adequate food and I apply these to recent issues concerning sustainable food security in the United States, such as food deserts. (shrink)

Concerns about values and caring in the USA are being widelyvoiced in many sectors of the society, including agriculture.The time seems right to bring new ideas about the ethics ofagriculture and eating into public discourse. The Society iswell situated to initiate the dialogue, and Paul Thompson'sbook {\it Spirit of the Soil} provides an excellentstarting point.

Large-scale transnational land acquisition of agricultural land in the global south by rich corporations or countries raises challenging normative questions. In this article, the author critically examines and advocates a human rights approach to these questions. Mutually reinforcing, policies, governance and practice promote equitable and secure land tenure that in turn, strengthens other human rights, such as to employment, livelihood and food. Human rights therefore provide standards for evaluating processes and outcomes of transnational (...) land acquisitions and, thus, for determining whether they are ethically unacceptable land grabs. A variety of recent policy initiatives on the issue have evoked human rights, most centrally through the consultation and negotiation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests concluded in 2012. However, a case of transnational land appropriation illustrates weak host and investor state enforcement of human rights, leaving the parties to in interaction with local groups in charge of protecting human rights. Generally, we have so far seen limited direct application of human rights by states in their governance of transnational land acquisition. Normative responses to transnational land acquisition—codes of conduct, principles of responsible agricultural investment or voluntary guidelines—do not in themselves secure necessary action and change. Applying human rights approaches one must therefore also analyze the material conditions, power relations and political processes that determine whether and how women and men can secure the human rights accountability of the corporations and governments that promote large-scale, transnational land acquisition in the global south. (shrink)

'This volume will make a lasting contribution to how we address the dilemmas that human rights theory and practice encounter - for instance, between democracy and human rights, negative and positive rights, or individual and group rights. Philosophers have become indispensable to lawyers' arguments about why human rights matter, and how they must be interpreted: this book superbly illustrates why.' - Olivier De Schutter, University of Louvain, Belgium and United Nations Special Rapporteur (...) on the right to food. (shrink)

This paper investigates necessary conditions for developing a participatory, rightsholder-driven approach to remedy for business-related human rights abuses by analyzing findings from a case study with the Fair Food Program. With the inclusion of human rights into discussions of business ethics and CSR, scholars and practitioners have made calls for participatory approaches to remedy to address cases of human rights abuses. However, a gap remains in our understanding of how to operationalize participatory approaches (...) in a manner that empowers rightsholders, particularly within contexts of severe power imbalances. The paper puts forth a rightsholder-driven theoretical framework for remedy, grounded on critical dialogic accountability principles and integrated with empirical analysis from the Fair Food Program case study. This framework defines remedy as a system comprising reinforcing aspects rather than standalone mechanisms. The critical dialogic accounting and accountability framework provides a theoretical framing of engagement that enables the inclusion of multiple, divergent voices and aims toward meaningful engagement with marginalized groups. The analysis of findings from the case study identifies enforcement and education as necessary conditions for effective and empowering rightsholder-driven approaches to remedy. The paper deconstructs these conditions to develop an understanding of the program’s unique approach to enforcement and education. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of rightsholder-driven remedy for Business and Human Rights and business accountability. (shrink)

This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Women's special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Women's identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a (...) human right requires that food issues be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food. (shrink)

This timely book by internationally regarded scholar of ethics and social/political philosophy, Michael Boylan, focuses on the history, application and significance of human rights in the West and China. Boylan engages the key current philosophical debates prevalent in human rights discourse today and draws them together to argue for the existence of natural, universal human rights. Arguing against the grain of mainstream philosophical beliefs, Boylan asserts that there is continuity between human rights (...) and natural law and that human beings require basic, essential goods for minimum action. These include food, clean water and sanitation, clothing, shelter and protection from bodily harm, including basic healthcare. The achievement of this goal, Boylan demonstrates, will require significant resource allocation and creative methods of implementation involving public and private institutions. Combining technical argument with four fictional narratives about human rights, the book invites readers to engage with the most important aspects of the discipline. (shrink)

Even as human rights provide the most widely shared moral language of our time, they also spark highly contested debates among scholars and policymakers. When should states protect human rights? Does the global war on terror necessitate the violation of some rights? Are food, housing, and health care valid human rights? Debating Human Rights introduces the theory and practice of international human rights by examining fourteen controversies in the (...) field. Daniel Chong presents the major arguments on both sides of each debate, encouraging readers to think critically and form their own opinions. Designed for classroom use, the structure of the book makes it easy for students to become familiar with the major political and legal actors in the global human rights system and to understand the practical challenges of protecting civil, political, social, and economic rights. (shrink)

Increasingly, the world seems to shrink due to our ever-expanding technological and communication capacities. Correspondingly, our awareness of other cultures increases. This is especially true in the field of bioethics because the technological progress of medicine throughout the world is causing dramatic and challenging intersections with traditionally held values. Think of the use of pregnancy monitoring technologies like ultrasound to abort fetuses of the “wrong” sex in India, the sale of human organs in and between countries, or the disjunction (...) between the haves and the have-nots in South America when it comes to bone marrow transplants, while thousands of other children die for want of fundamental goods and services like clean water, basic inoculations, and food itself. (shrink)

This paper considers the relationship between corporations and global human rights. This relationship lies at the heart of the 2010 conference theme “Business and the Sustainable Commons.” A human or natural right is one that is inherent, and thus universal, in being human. It is typical to distinguish between civil and political rights as a category (thus supposing constitutional democracy in some form); and economic, social, and cultural rights (thus implying minimum conditions such as (...) food, work, education, culture, and so forth). A right for one person implies a duty (not necessarily binding) for some other person or entity. The paper assesses the duty on corporations imposed by definition of global human rights. Such rights also involve considerations of enforcement and funding (or compensation). (shrink)

Increasingly, the world seems to shrink due to our ever-expanding technological and communication capacities. Correspondingly, our awareness of other cultures increases. This is especially true in the field of bioethics because the technological progress of medicine throughout the world is causing dramatic and challenging intersections with traditionally held values. Think of the use of pregnancy monitoring technologies like ultrasound to abort fetuses of the “wrong” sex in India, the sale of human organs in and between countries, or the disjunction (...) between the haves and the have-nots in South America when it comes to bone marrow transplants, while thousands of other children die for want of fundamental goods and services like clean water, basic inoculations, and food itself. (shrink)

Exposing food violences – hunger,malnutrition, and poisoning from environmentalmismanagement – requires policy action thatconfronts the structured invisibility of theseviolences. Along with the hidden deprivation offood is the physical and political isolation ofcritical knowledge on food violences and needs,and for policy strategies to address them. Iargue that efforts dedicated on behalf of ahuman right to food can benefit from thetheoretical analysis and activist work of theinternational Women's Rights are Human Rights(WRHR) movement. WRHR focuses on women (...) andgirls; the food rights movement operates onbehalf of all people, with an emphasis on thepoor. Both attend to the protection of bodilyintegrity against physical and psychicviolences. Both cope with bodily violences thatare socially privatized and spatiallysegregated from public institutions of relief,that is, they are tacitly omitted from publicdiscourse and purview. Most typically, but notexclusively, these violences unfold in privatehousehold space. Both rights movements mustmobilize political rights to demand economicand social rights and security. I introduce theUnited Nations' early Declaration (1948) andCovenant (1966) language on the human right tofood and review problems of household accessand grassroots engagement that are ``writteninto'' this early documentation. An abbreviatedoverview of the WRHR movement describes how thepublic/private and economic/political rightsdichotomies have been critiqued andre-formulated. A case study set in Polandacross the transition from (more) communist to(more) capitalist political economies attemptsto illuminate the discussion through agrounded example. (shrink)

Although significant literature and jurisprudence has amassed on rights-based climate litigation over recent years, less research and case law has emerged on poverty-related court cases and the fulfilment of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) in Canada. Fewer still are studies exploring the interlinkages between these areas of inquiry. The purpose of this paper is to explore, using Canada as a case study, rights-based developments in climate litigation cases and how these could impact the innovative advancement of (...) ESCR (e.g. to food, housing and water). Typically, issues of justiciability and standing emerge, impeding the realization of such rights. Given the grave threats we now face, climate cases and social movements must be brought together to better hold state actors accountable for their rights obligations. We implore the legal community to explore ways to traverse juridical obstacles to realize the interdependencies of human rights and protect the planet from calamitous climate change. (shrink)

This book addresses two central questions: What does it mean to shift the epistemic centre of human rights thinking and to decolonise global human rights? And, how to study the 'active' conceptual, empirical, epistemic and political life of rights in 'most of the world'? To address these questions, this book introduces and develops the framework of vernacular rights cultures. The study of vernacular rights cultures is an interdisciplinary, conceptual, epistemic, methodological and empirical project. (...) It intervenes in the current impasse of human rights debates to offer a framework through which the complexity and dynamism of rights-based mobilisations might be analytically captured, not simply as those which are mimetic, and engaged in the translation, enactment and localization of 'global human rights', but rather as those which have their specific languages of rights and entitlements grounded in specific political imaginaries, justificatory premises and subjectivities. Through a conceptual and ethnographic tracking of the Urdu/Arabic word haq across subaltern citizen mobilizations in India and Pakistan, the book analyses the deployment of rights in the vernacular in South Asia including the political, epistemic and ethical agency released by this rights politics. By focusing on the claims for rights/haq by marginalised and very poor women including dalit and indigenous women within grassroots mobilisations demanding rights to food, employment, public information/accountability and land rights in rural movements in India and Pakistan, the book documents the specific gendered political imaginaries that inform rights struggles in the subcontinent. (shrink)

This contribution considers the case law of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and focuses on the extent to which the Contracting Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can regulate the tobacco, alcohol, and food industries in a manner compatible with their ECHR obligations. After briefly presenting the two key cases dealing specifically with tobacco advertising, this contribution considers the main factors that the ECtHR takes into account when balancing competing concerns, and (...) in particular freedom of commercial expression and public health protection. It concludes that none of these factors is absolute, as the Court considers the strength of each one of them on the facts of each case. Nevertheless, it is clear from its case law that States have a wide margin of appreciation to regulate marketing practices that are inimical to public health and the prevention of non-communicable diseases more specifically, to the extent that even extensive advertising restrictions can be compatible with Article 10 of the ECHR. (shrink)

The situation and human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were explored through focus groups in five African countries . A descriptive qualitative research design was used. The 251 informants were people living with HIV and AIDS, and nurse managers and nurse clinicians from urban and rural settings. NVivo™ software was used to identify specific incidents related to human rights, which were compared with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The findings revealed (...) that the human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were violated in a variety of ways, including denial of access to adequate or no health care/services, and denial of home care, termination or refusal of employment, and denial of the right to earn an income, produce food or obtain loans. The informants living with HIV and AIDS were also abused verbally and physically. Country governments and health professionals need to address these issues to ensure the human rights of all people. (shrink)

The situation and human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were explored through focus groups in five African countries (Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania). A descriptive qualitative research design was used. The 251 informants were people living with HIV and AIDS, and nurse managers and nurse clinicians from urban and rural settings. NVivo™ software was used to identify specific incidents related to human rights, which were compared with the Universal Declaration of (...) class='Hi'>Human Rights. The findings revealed that the human rights of people living with HIV and AIDS were violated in a variety of ways, including denial of access to adequate or no health care/services, and denial of home care, termination or refusal of employment, and denial of the right to earn an income, produce food or obtain loans. The informants living with HIV and AIDS were also abused verbally and physically. Country governments and health professionals need to address these issues to ensure the human rights of all people. (shrink)

This article examines the moral, political and pedagogical tensions that are created from the entanglement of patriotism and human rights, and sketches a response to these tensions in the context of critical education. The article begins with a brief review of different forms of patriotism, especially as those relate to human rights, and explains why some of these forms may be morally or politically valuable. Then, it offers a brief overview of human rights critiques, (...) especially from the perspectives of Foucault, critical legal studies and postcolonial theory, and emphasizes that foundationalist perspectives of human rights need to be constantly contested. The next part of the article discusses how to overcome issues of incompatibility between patriotism and human rights. The final part proposes that a ‘rapprochement’ between patriotism and human rights in the context of critical education has to take into consideration that patriotic feelings (as a form of love for one’s country) constitute a particular form of ‘emotional education’. As such, the teaching of both patriotism and human rights would benefit from the notion of ‘critical pedagogies of emotion’ that interrogates the emotional commitments of patriotism and human rights and the consequences of these commitments. (shrink)

The second edition of this extensive work is the definitive source on issues pertaining to the full range of topics in the important area of food and agricultural ethics. Altogether about 100 new entries appear in this new edition. The start of the 21st century has seen intensified debate, discussion, and criticism of food and agriculture. Scholars, activists, and citizens increasingly question the goals and ethical rationale behind production, distribution and consumption of food, and the use of (...) crops for fuel and fiber. These wide-ranging debates encompass questions in human nutrition, animal rights, and the environmental impacts of agricultural production. The encyclopedia provides a detailed analysis of these issues and hundreds of other topics including the use of antibiotics in animal feedlots, the Green Revolution, organic farming, Islam and Food, and cannibalism.The Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, 2nd edition is an indispensable reference point for future research and writing on topics in agriculture, food, animal, and eating ethics. (shrink)

Food security, health, decent livelihoods, gender equity, safe working conditions, cultural identity and participation in cultural life are basic human rights that can be achieved at least in part through the food system. But current trends in the US prevent full realization of these economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) for residents, farmers, and wageworkers in the food system. Supply chains that strive to meet the goals of social justice, economic equity, and environmental quality (...) better than the dominant globalized food value networks are gaining popularity in the US. However, achieving important human rights has become conflated with other goals of food system reform over the past decade, such as being “community-based,” local, and sustainable. This conflation confuses means, ends, and complementary goals; and it may lead activists trying to help communities to regain control of their food system choices into less productive strategies. This paper introduces a new concept, rights-based food systems (RBFS), and explores its connection with localization and sustainability. The core criteria of RBFS are democratic participation in food system choices affecting more than one sector; fair, transparent access by producers to all necessary resources for food production and marketing; multiple independent buyers; absence of human exploitation; absence of resource exploitation; and no impingement on the ability of people in other locales to meet this set of criteria. Localization and a community base can help achieve RBFS by facilitating food democracy and reducing environmental exploitation, primarily by lowering environmental costs due to long-distance transportation. Sustainability per se is an empty goal for food system reform, unless what will be sustained and for whom are specified. The RBFS concept helps to clarify what is worth sustaining and who is most susceptible to neglect in attempts to reform food systems. Localization can be a means toward sustainability if local food systems are also RBFS. (shrink)

The paper seeks to understand India’s evolving rights framework in the backdrop of cow vigilantism. To that end it discusses the human right to food and nutrition, international discussion on minority rights issues in India and the relevant legal and constitutional discussion in India. It finds that India’s rights framework has evolved since proclamation of India as a Republic in 1950 based on the supremacy of its written constitution containing fundamental rights and directive principles (...) of state policy interpreted finally by its Supreme Court. The government took a wise step by not challenging a judicial rebalancing of the rights framework in response to certain executive measures and the Supreme Court interpreted the right to life to include not only the right to the choice of food but also the right to privacy and thereby underscored the obligation of the State to compensate the victims of cow vigilante violence. However, a constitutional polity and secular state would do all well if it did any further necessary to better guard against any recurrence of the breach of civil peace, much less violence, on purely secular issues, including by strengthening and increasing dialogue with all representative communities in all its decision-making on such matters. (shrink)

Introduction: human rights in healthcare -- A right to treatment? the allocation of resouces in the National Health Service -- Ensuring quality healthcare: an issue of rights or duties? -- Autonomy and consent in medical treatment -- Treating incompetent patients: beneficence, welfare and rights -- Medical confidentiality and the right to privacy -- Property right in the body -- Medically assisted conception and a right to reproduce? -- Termination of pregnancy: a conflict of rights -- (...) Pregnancy and freedom of choice -- The right to life at the end of life -- The law and ethics of assisted dying: is there a right to die? (shrink)