The Islamic Perspective on Freedom and Human Rights

Author(s):  
Rached Ghannouchi

This chapter expounds on the Islamic perspective on freedom and human rights, and draws references from multiple Islamic thinkers on the subject. It asserts that freedom, according to the Islamic worldview, is a trust, a responsibility, an awareness of the truth, a commitment to follow it, and a dying to self for its sake. According to its literal meaning, freedom is permission and choice, or simply following one's instincts. Freedom is thus the power to choose between good and evil—a divinely appointed responsibility. Furthermore, according to the specialists in legal theory, in its ethical and legal meaning freedom means “conformity.” Freedom is to exercise responsibility in a positive way, fulfilling one's duty in in a spirit of obedience by following what is commanded and avoiding what is forbidden.

Author(s):  
John Finnis

When made within the discourse of ethics, political theory, or legal theory or philosophy of law, the claim that there is a natural law is an offer to explain and defend certain claims often made, in different terms, in the discourse of moral argument, politics or law. In pre-theoretical moral discourse, certain choices, actions or dispositions may be asserted to be ‘inhuman’, ‘unnaturally cruel’, ‘perverse’ or ‘morally unreasonable’. In pre-theoretical political discourse, certain proposals, policies or conduct may be described as violations of ‘human rights’. In international law and jurisprudence, certain actions may be described as ‘crimes against humanity’ and citizens may claim immunity from legal liability or obligations by appealing to a ‘higher law’. A natural law theory offers to explain why claims of this sort can be rationally warranted and true. It offers to do so by locating such claims in the context of a general theory of good and evil in human life so far as human life is shaped by deliberation and choice. Such a general theory can also be called a general theory of right and wrong in human choices and actions. It will contain both (1) normative propositions identifying types of choice, action or disposition as right or wrong, permissible, obligatory and so on, and (2) non-normative propositions about the objectivity and epistemological warrant of the normative propositions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-153
Author(s):  
А. Т. Комзюк ◽  
Є. А. Липій

The relations arising in the activity of public administration concerning the provision of human rights and freedoms, which are recognized as a priority component of the subject matter of administrative regulation, are characterized.  It is emphasized that one of the main, conceptual, most important and at the same time the most controversial issues is still the understanding of the subject matter and system of administrative law. The tasks concerning the assertion of the rights and freedoms of citizens, in particular the completeness of the settlement of their guarantees, are analyzed.  It is established that it can be carried out in different ways and means: by utterances in declarations, statements, enshrined in the Constitution and laws; participation in the preparation and adoption of international human rights instruments, accession to relevant international treaties, etc. Regarding administrative regulation, it is an issue of consolidating human and civil rights and freedoms in the sources of administrative law and recognizing their priority. The essence of the concept of "provision" and its elements are defined, which means the recognition and settlement with due fullness of these rights and freedoms, providing a real opportunity to use them, promoting implementation (positive guarantee), protection and defense from violations, renewal if allowed and responsibility of the state for them. It is emphasized that the protection and defense of the rights of citizens in modern administrative and legal theory are rarely considered as part of the constitutional principle of their approval and provision. Moreover, the emphasis in many works is exclusively made on the so-called "service" activities of public administration, which provide the most positive promotion of the rights and freedoms of citizens. However, it is no less important to maintain proper public order and security, to counteract to various illegal manifestations that infringe on these rights and freedoms, causing some damage, sometimes quite significant. The conclusion is made about the expediency of taking into account the relations concerning the provision of human rights and freedoms and its elements, in particular protection and defense in the construction of the system of administrative law.


Laws ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Oliveira

The legal conception and interpretation of the subject of law have long been challenged by different theoretical backgrounds: from the feminist critiques of the patriarchal nature of law and its subjects to the Marxist critiques of its capitalist ideological nature and the anti-racist critiques of its colonial nature. These perspectives are, in turn, challenged by anarchist, queer, and crip conceptions that, while compelling a critical return to the subject, the structure and the law also serve as an inspiration for arguments that deplete the structures and render them hostages of the sovereignty of the subject’ self-fiction. Identity Wars (a possible epithet for this political and epistemological battle to establish meaning through which power is exercised) have, for their part, been challenged by a renewed axiological consensus, here introduced by posthuman critical theory: species hierarchy and anthropocentric exceptionalism. As concepts and matter, questioning human exceptionalism has created new legal issues: from ecosexual weddings with the sea, the sun, or a horse; to human rights of animals; to granting legal personhood to nature; to human rights of machines, inter alia the right to (or not to) consent. Part of a wider movement on legal theory, which extends the notion of legal subjectivity to non-human agents, the subject is increasingly in trouble. From Science Fiction to hyperrealist materialism, this paper intends to signal some of the normative problems introduced, firstly, by the sovereignty of the subject’s self-fiction; and, secondly, by the anthropomorphization of high-tech robotics.


Author(s):  
Ю. М. Оборотов

В современной методологии юриспруденции происходит переход от изучения состо­яний ее объекта, которыми выступают право и государство, к постижению этого объек­та в его изменениях и превращениях. Две подсистемы методологии юриспруденции, подсистема обращенная к состоянию права и государства; и подсистема обращенная к изменениям права и государства, — получают свое отображение в концептуальной форме, методологических подходах, методах, специфических понятиях. Показательны перемены в содержании методологии юриспруденции, где определяю­щее значение имеют методологические подходы, определяющие стратегию исследова­тельских поисков во взаимосвязи юриспруденции с правом и государством. Среди наи­более характерных подходов антропологический, аксиологический, цивилизационный, синергетический и герменевтический — определяют плюралистичность современной методологии и свидетельствуют о становлении новой парадигмы методологии юриспру­денции.   In modern methodology of jurisprudence there is a transition from the study the states of its object to its comprehension in changes and transformations. Hence the two subsystems of methodology of jurisprudence: subsystem facing the states of the law and the state as well as their components and aspects; and subsystem facing the changes of the law and the state in general and their constituents. These subsystems of methodology of jurisprudence receive its reflection in conceptual form, methodological approaches, methods, specific concepts. Methodology of jurisprudence should not be restricted to the methodology of legal theory. In this regard, it is an important methodological question about subject of jurisprudence. It is proposed to consider the subject of jurisprudence as complex, covering both the law and the state in their specificity, interaction and integrity. Indicative changes in the content methodology of jurisprudence are the usage of decisive importance methodological approaches that govern research strategy searches in conjunction with the law and the state. Among the most characteristic of modern development approaches: anthropological, axiological, civilization, synergistic and hermeneutic. Modern methodology of jurisprudence is pluralistic in nature alleging various approaches to the law and the state. Marked approaches allow the formation of a new paradigm methodology of jurisprudence.


Author(s):  
Emily Robins Sharpe

The Jewish Canadian writer Miriam Waddington returned repeatedly to the subject of the Spanish Civil War, searching for hope amid the ruins of Spanish democracy. The conflict, a prelude to World War II, inspired an outpouring of literature and volunteerism. My paper argues for Waddington’s unique poetic perspective, in which she represents the Holocaust as the Spanish Civil War’s outgrowth while highlighting the deeply personal repercussions of the war – consequences for women, for the earth, and for community. Waddington’s poetry connects women’s rights to human rights, Canadian peace to European war, and Jewish persecution to Spanish carnage.


Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-83
Author(s):  
Tushar Kadian

Actually, basic needs postulates securing of the elementary conditions of existence to every human being. Despite of the practical and theoretical importance of the subject the greatest irony is non- availability of any universal preliminary definition of the concept of basic needs. Moreover, this becomes the reason for unpredictability of various political programmes aiming at providing basic needs to the people. The shift is necessary for development of this or any other conception. No labour reforms could be made in history till labours were treated as objects. Its only after they were started being treating as subjects, labour unions were allowed to represent themselves in strategy formulations that labour reforms could become a reality. The present research paper highlights the basic needs of Human Rights in life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 88-93
Author(s):  
K.N. Golikov ◽  

The subject of this article is the problems of the nature, essence and purpose of prosecutorial activity. The purpose of the article is to study and justify the role of the human rights function in prosecutorial activities in the concept of a modern legal state. At the heart of prosecutorial activity is the implementation of the main function of the Prosecutor’s office – its rights and freedoms, their protection. This means that any type (branch) of Prosecutor's supervision is permeated with human rights content in relation to a citizen, society, or the state. This is confirmed by the fact that the Federal law “On the Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation” establishes an independent type of Prosecutor's supervision-supervision over the observance of human and civil rights and freedoms. It is argued that the legislation enshrines the human rights activities of the Prosecutor's office as its most important function. It is proposed to add this to the Law “On the Prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation”.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Léon E Dijkman

Abstract Germany is one of few jurisdictions with a bifurcated patent system, under which infringement and validity of a patent are established in separate proceedings. Because validity proceedings normally take longer to conclude, it can occur that remedies for infringement are imposed before a decision on the patent’s validity is available. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the ‘injunction gap’ and has been the subject of increasing criticism over the past years. In this article, I examine the injunction gap from the perspective of the right to a fair trial enshrined in Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I find that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights interpreting this provision supports criticism of the injunction gap, because imposing infringement remedies with potentially far-reaching consequences before the validity of a patent has been established by a court of law arguably violates defendants’ right to be heard. Such reliance on the patent office’s grant decision is no longer warranted in the light of contemporary invalidation rates. I conclude that the proliferation of the injunction gap should be curbed by an approach to a stay of proceedings which is in line with the test for stays as formulated by Germany’s Federal Supreme Court. Under this test, courts should stay infringement proceedings until the Federal Patent Court or the EPO’s Board of Appeal have ruled on the validity of a patent whenever it is more likely than not that it will be invalidated.


Author(s):  
Susan Petrilli

AbstractIdentity as traditionally conceived in mainstream Western thought is focused on theory, representation, knowledge, subjectivity and is centrally important in the works of Emmanuel Levinas. His critique of Western culture and corresponding notion of identity at its foundations typically raises the question of the other. Alterity in Levinas indicates existence of something on its own account, in itself independently of the subject’s will or consciousness. The objectivity of alterity tells of the impossible evasion of signs from their destiny, which is the other. The implications involved in reading the signs of the other have contributed to reorienting semiotics in the direction of semioethics. In Levinas, the I-other relation is not reducible to abstract cognitive terms, to intellectual synthesis, to the subject-object relation, but rather tells of involvement among singularities whose distinctive feature is alterity, absolute alterity. Humanism of the other is a pivotal concept in Levinas overturning the sense of Western reason. It asserts human duties over human rights. Humanism of alterity privileges encounter with the other, responsibility for the other, over tendencies of the centripetal and egocentric orders that instead exclude the other. Responsibility allows for neither rest nor peace. The “properly human” is given in the capacity for absolute otherness, unlimited responsibility, dialogical intercorporeity among differences non-indifferent to each other, it tells of the condition of vulnerability before the other, exposition to the other. The State and its laws limit responsibility for the other. Levinas signals an essential contradiction between the primordial ethical orientation and the legal order. Justice involves comparing incomparables, comparison among singularities outside identity. Consequently, justice places limitations on responsibility, on unlimited responsibility which at the same time it presupposes as its very condition of possibility. The present essay is structured around the following themes: (1) Premiss; (2) Justice, uniqueness, and love; (3) Sign and language; (4) Dialogue and alterity; (5) Semiotic materiality; (6) Globalization and the trap of identity; (7) Human rights and rights of the other: for a new humanism; (8) Ethics; (9) The World; (10) Outside the subject; (11) Responsibility and Substitution; (12) The face; (13) Fear of the other; (14) Alterity and justice; (15) Justice and proximity; (16) Literary writing; (17) Unjust justice; (18) Caring for the other.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-53
Author(s):  
Kaushik Paul

In recent years, the wearing of Islamic dress in public spaces and elsewhere has generated widespread controversy all over Europe. The wearing of the hijab and other Islamic veils has been the subject of adjudication before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on many occasions. The most recent case before the ECtHR as to the prohibition on wearing the hijab is Lachiri v Belgium. In this case, the ECtHR held that a prohibition on wearing the hijab in the courtroom constitutes an infringement of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which guarantees the right to freedom of religion or belief. From the perspective of religious freedom, the ruling of the Strasbourg Court in Lachiri is very significant for many reasons. The purpose of this comment is critically to analyse the ECtHR's decision in Lachiri from the standpoint of religious liberty.


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