The project of constitutional democracy and the rule of law concept served as a powerful unifying platform for political compromise during the liberal democratic transformation after 1989. Today’s challenge to the liberal rule of law calls for re-evaluating our understanding of that period. To provide a deeper historical perspective, this chapter offers a tentative historical typology of the various rule of law understandings of the period of ‘liberal consensus’. First, it outlines the historical roots of the 1989 democratic and constitutional revolutions in ECE, pointing out their major sources, namely the import of Western constitutional theory, dissident human rights activism and the mostly neglected yet critical authoritarian socialist constitutionalism. Second, the chapter analyses the politics of liberal constitutionalism, in the 1990s, from the point of view of its internal diversity, depending on the different political ideas and ideologies behind it. The variety of constitutional imagination sets the stage for the final step, which is the exploration of different rule of law conceptions, namely neoliberal, substantive, positivist and non-liberal. Although transnational in its perspective, the last section, for the sake of concision and clarity, focuses primarily on the Czech context.

This chapter provides a comprehensive analysis of the international legal framework governing Indigenous peoples’ rights, focusing on the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 No. 169 (ILO 169) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples (UNDRIP). It explores the fundamental principle of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) within these instruments and its crucial role in sustainable development. Examining ILO 169, the chapter discusses guidelines related to self-determination, land rights, cultural preservation, and state obligations to cooperate with Indigenous peoples, specifically in the context of Canada’s Indigenous communities. Analysing the UNDRIP, it explores guidelines concerning self-determination, land rights, and states’ duty to obtain FPIC. Emphasizing the significance of consent as a cornerstone of Indigenous rights and sustainable development, the chapter concludes by acknowledging the complexities involved in its practical application. By delving into substantive and procedural aspects of international law, this chapter establishes an understanding of international legal norms in promoting Indigenous rights and facilitating sustainable development.

In the 1990s, the humanitarian charities finalised their entry into the development mainstream. They became partners in a humanitarian-development complex associated with military intervention, liberal governance and permanent emergency. As they followed in the wake of more powerful agencies, they also adopted the rhetoric and discourses of official aid. Following the collapse of both communism and apartheid, human rights were confirmed as the guiding principle of international governance. Charity regulation had previously prevented the advocacy of human rights. But after the Declaration on the Right to Development in 1993, the charities all signed up to a ‘rights-based approach’. This was a human rights framework more individualised, more focused on basic rights and less targeted at the inequalities arising out of structural injustice. Rights allowed the humanitarians to depoliticise their work and for charity to be accepted as a part of the common sense solution to poverty at home and abroad. This was a type of charitable humanitarianism that emerged ‘after empire’ and which was palatable to both governments and mass donating publics.

This chapter closes off the volume by exploring the innovative approaches to incorporating the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and sustainable development in newly negotiated Indigenous trade agreements. The introduction highlights the significance of UNDRIP in promoting the rights and aspirations of Indigenous peoples. The chapter details the origins of the Indigenous Peoples Economic Trade and Cultural Agreement (IPETCA), focusing on its innovations that enabled trade negotiations that amplified Indigenous views and values while enabled by the nation-states of New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, and Canada. The chapter then delves into the sustainable development aspects of IPETCA, showcasing how it aligns with the principles of UNDRIP and fosters economic growth while respecting Indigenous rights. It then discusses IPETCA’s working mechanism and implementation. Thus, the chapter underscores the importance of innovative approaches like IPETCA in advancing Indigenous trade agreements that prioritize sustainable development and uphold the principles of UNDRIP.

This chapter presents agreements between Indigenous peoples and governments, specifically those in Bangladesh and Mexico that focus on their roles in promoting sustainable development. The introduction sets the stage for subsequent discussions by emphasizing the importance of global legal and policy frameworks in shaping these agreements, with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The two case studies from Bangladesh and Mexico are then analysed, shedding light on the unique characteristics, provisions, and outcomes of agreements between Indigenous peoples and governments in these contexts. A comparative analysis is conducted to identify commonalities, differences, and lessons learned from these case studies. Ultimately, the chapter concludes by highlighting the significance of ongoing dialogue, collaboration, and respect for Indigenous rights in achieving sustainable development goals globally. It underscores the importance of incorporating Indigenous perspectives and aspirations into the design and implementation of such agreements.

This chapter presents case studies of Indigenous peace agreements in the Andes region. It begins with an introduction that highlights the significance of understanding legal geography and its relevance to Indigenous peoples. It then explores the legal frameworks that protect Indigenous rights, focusing on international instruments such as declarations and conventions. It then examines specific agreements in the Andes that enact these legal frameworks, with a spotlight on the National Agreement for Development and Peace in La Araucanía, 2018, in Chile, and the Agreement Between the Bolivian Government and the Confederation of Indigenous peoples from the East, Chaco, and Amazonia in 2010. These case studies showcase the intersection of legal, social, and political dynamics in promoting Indigenous rights and fostering peace. By analysing the legal geographies of these agreements, the chapter contributes to a deeper understanding of the complex challenges and opportunities Indigenous communities face in achieving sustainable development and peace in the Andes region.

Suicide is a global phenomenon, with implications for HICs and LMICs alike, bec,ause of interconnectedness. Social injustice increases societies’ suicide risk and it is easily and frequently exported. Suicide is preventable but not always individually. Suicide prediction is difficult or impossible, so those measures that effect everyone work best. Hence assuring good quality, timely mental health coverage for the whole population is important. Those with the least resources must be targeted, as they are at greatest risk..

A framing case study discusses child workers in Bolivia. Then the chapter provides an overview of international human rights law. The chapter first discusses the historical origins of the human rights movement and the multilateral and regional human rights systems. Then it outlines major physical integrity rights, including laws that prohibit genocide, ethnic cleansing, torture, and human trafficking. It next turns to major civil and political rights, including the right to free expression, assembly, and association, various religious protections, and criminal justice rights. Finally, it examines major economic, social, and cultural rights, including rules about labor, economic and social assistance, cultural rights, and the rights of marginalized groups, like women, children, and the disabled.

The concept of Humanity is defined as the character of the human species, and it is distinguished from other similar concepts: humankind, humanness, human rights, human obligations, human dignity, and human mutual love. Humanity encompasses the spirit of general reason, and Marcus Aurelius is cited as a prime example of this spirit. The purpose of social and state institutions, of the arts and sciences is to humanize. This is borne out by Lucretius, Homer, Shaftesbury, Lessing, Diderot, and Swift, and citations of their works are given as testimony. Lessing’s Emilia Galotti is read as an example of how morality is realized in the theatre. The chapter closes with a poem by Ludwig Gleim as an example of human goodness.

This chapter explores processes of legalisation in the context of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) in extractive industries. It analyses three major regimes: the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), launched in 2002 to curb the trade in conflict diamonds; the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard promoting accountability in natural resource governance; and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPs), adopted in 2000 to address abuses by private security forces protecting corporate assets. These initiatives display a distinctive focus on implementation. Participants may receive substantial guidance and support to assist with compliance. State and non-state actors contribute to the production of guidelines, toolkits and performance indicators designed to assist corporations in rule implementation on the ground and in specific contexts. When violations occur, members may support the offending party in implementing reforms before resorting to sanctions.

The book examines the various arenas in which actors are making – and breaking – the rules in business and human rights. It advances a framework for analysing these developments by adapting the liberal institutionalist concept of legalisation articulated in Kenneth Abbott et al.’s article ‘The Concept of Legalization’. Applied in the transnational context, the classic framework appears incomplete: it omits a crucial dimension – implementation – which operates alongside obligation, precision and delegation. The empirical chapters in this book reveal that efforts toward implementation are often pursued with the aim of strengthening one or more of the other dimensions over time. In such cases, actors play the long game: they may accept lower levels of obligation, precision or delegation in the short term, anticipating that early attention to implementation will enhance these dimensions in the longer run. Beyond business and human rights, this revised framework may also illuminate regulatory dynamics in transnational fields such as climate governance, national security, and anti-trafficking.

This chapter surveys the international legal framework governing transnational corporations (TNCs) and human rights. It begins with a brief history of the corporation, traces the rise of transnational corporate power since the 1970s, and offers a definition of the TNC. It then outlines the various ways in which corporate activities can adversely affect human rights, drawing on some of the most notorious incidents of recent decades. The chapter highlights the persistent difficulty of regulating corporations at the international level and describes the current regime under which states bear primary responsibility for preventing and remedying human rights abuses within their territories, including those committed by businesses. Since 2010, several states have introduced modern slavery legislation requiring companies to conduct due diligence on their operations and supply chains.

The Leveller John Lilburne spent repeated spells accused of sedition or treason between 1638 and 1653. He was both a lay lawyer and a cause lawyer, pursuing the full range of what he insisted were the procedural rights of anyone on trial on criminal charges. Though he sometimes pointed to the law of England to make these claims, he was more insistent and consistent in basing these rights on the laws of God, nature, and reason. In this way, he moved from national to natural modes of rights claiming—he argued for human rights. This essay draws on the scores of publications where he made these claims. He never convinced his judges to accept them. But he convinced his jurors and people in the streets. Centuries would pass before the procedural rights he promoted were accepted as law. These rights would be even more fully embraced around the globe in the major human rights declarations of the twentieth century.

This chapter systematically teases out and reflects on the antinomies and aporias that characterize each of two broad sets of international human rights solidarity argumentation. These are the broadly shared discourses on the issue that emanate in each case from the Global North and Global South. Why do Global North States tend to accept and focus on binding international human rights obligations in the civil and political (CP) rights area, while demurring regarding similarly mandatory legal duties to express international solidarity in regard to economic and social (ES) rights? And why do Global South countries tend to argue in favor of such binding obligations with regard to ES rights but not nearly as much regarding CP rights? The chapter is mainly concerned with the rather ironic circulation and eclipsing of relevant antinomies and aporias in plain sight; their relationships to state sovereignty argumentation; and their connections to global power relations as ideationally constitutive forces. In the last respect, the key question is what the relative roles of values/norms in international human rights solidarity argumentation are, vis-à-vis global power relations. And these questions should highlight for scholars the imperative to track internationalist praxis over the longue durée.

This chapter explores the relevance of the Christian tradition to contemporary debates on solidarity in international law and human rights. It positions the genealogy of solidarity within early Christian writings in which the western theological concepts of suffering, love, and salvation are detailed. Linking the Pauline doctrine and writings of early theologians to the processes of modernity – of which notions such as the West, the Global South, good neighborliness, and human rights are a part – the concept of solidarity is traced to a particularly Christian dynamic. As such, the promise of solidarity in international legal discourse, human rights discourse, and refugee discourse is considered as analogous to the way in which forms of messianism manifest themselves through a Christian logic of love, sacrifice, and debt.