Reconsidering Resource Rights: The Case for a Basic Right to the Benefits of Life-Sustaining Ecosystem Services

In the presence of anthropogenic climate change, gross environmental degradation, and mass abject poverty, many political theorists currently debate issues such as people's right to water, the right to food, and the distribution of rights to natural resources more generally. However, thus far many theorists either focus (somewhat arbitrarily) only on one particular resource (e.g. water) or they treat all natural resources alike, meaning that many relevant distinctions within the group of natural resources are overlooked. Hence, the paper will start with an analysis of the various forms which natural resources can take and how this might influence one's conception of resource rights. In so doing, the paper argues that we have to carefully distinguish between the actual physical resources people might control and how we distribute these, and the life-sustaining benefits each and every person draws from sustainable and functioning ecosystems. Based on this distinction, the paper will argue for a right to the benefits of life-sustaining ecosystem services as a universal basic right every person has. Further distributive claims with respect to particular physical resources would thus be limited by the requirements of such a basic right.

From the Right to Life to the Right to Livability: Radically Re-approaching ‘Life’ in Human Rights Politics

This article critically reflects on current mainstream debate on abortion in international human rights discourse and the conception of life underpinning it. The public health focus on access to safe abortion which has dominated this discourse can be detected as committed to a fundamentally liberal idea of bounded and individual subjecthood which mirrors the commitments of the liberal right to life more generally. However, feminist challenges to this frame seeking to advance wider access to reproductive freedoms appear equally underpinned by a liberal conception of life. It is asserted that feminists may offer a more radical challenge to the current impasse in international debate on abortion by engaging with the concept of livability which foregrounds life as an interdependent and conditioned process. The trope of the ‘right to livability’ developed in this article presents a means to reposition the relation between rights and life and facilitate such radical engagement which better attends to the socio-political conditions shaping our interdependent living and being.

The Right to Participation of Minorities and Irish Travellers

The idea of participation is becoming increasingly important in international human rights law and recent political and constitutional theory. There is an emerging international law right of minorities to participate in public life. There are many problems though with putting this right into practice. It is not enough to offer formal opportunities for representation or even to facilitate more participatory processes. This article explores how participation is more easily proclaimed than practised by examining the position of one ethnic minority, Travellers, in a liberal democracy, Ireland. While there are many formal opportunities for participation, these do not necessarily result in effective participation on a basis of equality, and may still result in decisions which fail to consider the Traveller culture and identity. Travellers still suffer from an imbalance of power in these arrangements. There are hopeful avenues to pursue in improving participation, the role of civil society and the use of a dialogue between non-governmental organisations and international organisations to put pressure on a national government, including special representation to offset the disadvantages of traditional representative democracy and emphasising the role of special parliamentary bodies; and the need to address the politics of recognition so as to strengthen the hand of disadvantaged groups such as Travellers.

On How to Build a Positive Understanding of the Child’s Right to Freedom of Expression

This article looks at the child’s right to freedom of expression under UN treaties. It defines the legal basis, the scope and the extent of the child’s right and it compares it with the adult’s right to freedom of expression. It argues that freedom of expression has both a developmental and an autonomy aspect, and that Article 12 UNCRC does a better job at encapsulating the child’s right than Article 13. It concludes that the child’s right is very much based on the positive obligations of the state, to the difference of traditional international law on freedom of expression.

The Right to Work in the ECHR

The European Convention on Human Rights does not explicitly protect the right to work; nevertheless the ECHR case law protects aspects of this right. The paper summarises the content of the right to work and then demonstrates how the case law protects aspects of it. Article 8 can be used to protect the right to seek employment, while Articles 6 and 8 can be used to combat unfair dismissal. Other ECHR Articles prohibit discrimination. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to how to develop this trend in the case law. First, Article 8 should be recognised as protecting the negative aspects of the right to work. Second, the relationship between Article 8 and Article 14 needs clarification. Third, there is scope to develop positive obligations in relation to the right to work.

The Right to Appropriate and meaningful Education for Children with ASD

This paper will explore from a ‘child’s rights perspective’ the ‘right’ of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) to appropriate and meaningful education.Human ‘rights’ principles within international law will be evaluated in relation to how they have been interpreted and applied in relation to achieving this ‘right’. The International Convention of the Rights of the Child (United Nations in Convention on the rights of the child, office of the high commissioner, United Nations, Geneva, 1989) and the convention on the rights of the person with disability (United Nations in Convention on the rights of person’s with disabilities and optional protocol, office of the high commissioner, United Nations, Geneva, 2006) amongst others will be utilised to argue the case for ‘inclusive’educational opportunities to be a ‘right’ of every child on the autistic spectrum. The efficacy of mainstream inclusion is explored, identifying the position that a ‘one size fits all’model of education is not appropriate for all children with ASD.

Children's Views on Children's Right to Work:Reflections from Belfast

The purpose of this article is to examine children’s attitudes regarding the right to work. The article is based on comments made by 245 15-year-old children on child employment and is supported by focus group interviews with 56 boys and 38 girls and tape-recorded interviews with 15 working pupils. One of most dominant themes to emerge from the data is children’s perception that they have a right to work. The article examines the legislation regarding child employment in Northern Ireland and the role of the state in determining the legislation. The author suggests that within this legislation, children are seen as vulnerable and in need of protection. Traditionally the protection of children in the workforce has been achieved by limiting the hours they can work and the occupations they can enter. Yet when children’s own views are taken into account, they move beyond the limits of protecting them through exclusion to suggesting frameworks whereby their protection may be achieved by empowering them within the labour market.