JOURNAL/BOOKS: Intersentia

Intersentia has announced the publication of:

Inter-American and European Human Rights Journal / Revista Interamericana y Europea de Derechos Humanos

Sisay Alemahu Yeshanew, The Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the African Regional Human Rights System

The judicial and quasi-judicial enforceability of economic, social and cultural (ESC) rights has long been disputed based on some flawed characterizations of the rights and concerns about the role of adjudication in addressing issues of socio-economic development. Underscoring the generally poor socio-economic conditions in most African states, this book argues that the justiciability of ESC rights in the African regional human rights system plays a subsidiary role in ensuring social justice and the accountability of public authorities in the states of the continent. It marries theory and practice relating to the normative, institutional and procedural aspects of the justiciability of ESC rights in exploring the actual and potential relevance of the African human rights system to the amelioration of impoverishment, disease, illiteracy, homelessness, starvation, marginalization and other related problems that may be framed in terms of violations of ESC rights.

Gijsbert ter Kuile, Of Bills and Rights: Human rights proofing legislation - Comparing the United Kingdom and The Netherlands

“What actually happens before a bill is drafted? Before it is certified [as human rights proof]? I do not know; I do not think many people really know.” This was a fair comment by a long-standing member of the UK Joint Committee on Human Rights. Who is human rights proofing bills before they come to Parliament, and indeed when in Parliament? And how is this proofing done? These questions are under-researched as human rights studies usually focus on the executive and judiciary branches of government. But what does the legislative branch do to safeguard human rights?

This book provides answers to these questions by mapping the legislative processes of both the United Kingdom and The Netherlands, and comparing them from an ECHR perspective. It then explains the comparative findings by proposing a theory of accountability. Because of webs of accountability legislative actors in both countries actively seek to make bills human rights compatible. More popularly said: everyone’s fingerprints are on the bills to try and render them ECHR proof.

The interest of this book lies with the people that support the formal legislative institutions in this human rights quest. Interviews have been held in London and The Hague with over 25 civil servants, working in departments (the ministries of Justice, the Attorney General’s Office, the Council of State), as draftsmen (the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel), or in the two parliaments (the JCHR, clerks in the States-General). These frank interviews provide new material and insights into the formal process of turning bills into Acts that ideally are Convention proof.