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A sustained argument that a general right to conscientious exemption should be equally available to religious and non-religious objectors alike.
Pandemic Response and the Cost of Lockdowns brings the vast analytical apparatus of the humanities and social sciences to the task of critically analysing the political decisions taken in 2020–21. The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic left little time for critical debate about the impact of lockdowns. Across the world, governments claimed to "follow the science", but they rarely paid attention to the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, the absence of these perspectives is symptomatic of a longer-term trend in the marginalisation of the humanities and social sciences in policymaking and public debate. This book exposes the tragic consequences of this omission in 2020–21 and dem...
Proportionality is a German, and thus continental European, concept in public law that is applied by both the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The principle specifies that measures adopted by executive authorities should not exceed the limits of what is appropriate and necessary in order to achieve legitimate objectives in the interest of the public. Using a functional comparative approach, this book evaluates the extent to which proportionality has been integrated into the English and Hong Kong judicial systems by comparing case law in these courts with that of the CJEU and the ECtHR. The text also reviews the development of proportionality and presents a topical understanding of why its adoption and application have encountered difficulties, particularly regarding socio-economic rights, in some jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Written by a scholar with experience from both within the Hong Kong judicial system and from international research, this book is the first all-encompassing reference for legal practitioners worldwide.
Traditionally few people challenged the distinction between absolute and selective conscientious objection by those being asked to carry out military duties. The former is an objection to fighting all wars - a position generally respected and accommodated by democratic states, while the latter is an objection to a specific war or conflict - theoretically and practically a much harder idea to accept and embrace for military institutions. However, a decade of conflict not clearly aligned to vital national interests combined with recent acts of selective conscientious objection by members of the military have led some to reappraise the situation and argue that selective conscientious objection ...
This book argues for reform of the convention that, when politicians decide on a course of action, the general in supreme command obeys without question. The entire spread‐out chain of command is unified in the general, who offers the only connection between the military and politics. Offering the sole connection between the military and politics, only the general can turn political directions into military command and capacitate war. Thus, the general has unique opportunity to resist unconscionable direction to launch an unjust war or to conduct or expand war unjustly. This book argues for reform, so the general has the right in law to refuse direction which is lawful, but awful. The legal capacity to refuse would mean the general would be expected to act responsibly, not merely as the unresisting pawn of politics. Such reform, creating legal opportunity for the supreme command to refuse lawful but unconscionable directives, might avert unjust war. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war, civil‐military relations, and international relations.
This book aims to examine and critically analyse the role that religion has and should have in the public and legal sphere. The main purpose of the book is to explain why religion, on the whole, should not be tolerated in a tolerant-liberal democracy and to describe exactly how it should not be tolerated – mainly by addressing legal issues. The main arguments of the book are, first, that as a general rule illiberal intolerance should not be tolerated; secondly, that there are meaningful, unique links between religion and intolerance, and between holding religious beliefs and holding intolerant views (and ultimately acting upon these views); and thirdly, that the religiosity of a legal claim is normally a reason, although not necessarily a prevailing one, not to accept that claim.
The phenomenon of child trafficking holds a unique position as an issue of significant contemporary relevance, occupying a principal place in debates about human rights today. The interchangeable terms trafficking and modern slavery evoke emotive responses and proclamations about abolition of contemporary ills, viewed as the ultimate aberration when a child is involved. The classification of children under legal frameworks marks them as different, as ‘other’, and in the context of laws implemented to address trafficking, slavery, and children on the move more generally, this distinction is complicated. This book charts the emergence, decline and re-emergence of child trafficking law and ...
Traditional apologetics is either focused on obscure, quasi-Thomist philosophical arguments for God's existence or on 18th-century-style answers to alleged biblical contradictions. But a new approach has recently entered the picture: the juridical defence of historic Christian faith, with its particular concern for demonstrating Jesus's deity and saving work for humankind. The undisputed leader of this movement is John Warwick Montgomery, emeritus professor of law and humanities, University of Bedfordshire, England, and director, International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights, Strasbourg, France. His latest book (of more than sixty published during his career) shows the strength of legal apologetics: its arguments, drawn from secular legal reasoning, can be rejected only at the cost of jettisoning the legal system itself, on which every civilised society depends for its very existence. The present work also includes theological essays on vital topics of the day, characterised by the author's well-known humour and skill for lucid communication.
Adopting a novel approach to cut through several enduring controversies in discrimination law theory, this book provides a sophisticated doctrinal and philosophical treatment of the key questions of discrimination law. It argues that the real point of discrimination law is to remove abiding, pervasive, and substantial relative group disadvantage.
Every aspect of the pandemic was said to be ‘total,’ absolute, and undiscriminating. Its very name implied as much. The virus was everywhere, and a threat to us all. In Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus: The Elision of an Alternative, Michael Lewis identifies three moments within the pandemic that were conceived in such a monolithic way: (1) ‘The Science,’ which had to be unanimous if it was to assume a sovereign role, and to have us ‘follow’ it; (2) ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions,’ which were regarded as the only possible response, without which death and disease would ‘run riot’; and (3) the one sole remedy that could bring about the promised end of the restrict...