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.

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.

A labor theoretic approach to information retrieval

This article synthesizes the labor theoretic approach to information retrieval. Selection power is taken as the fundamental value for information retrieval and is regarded as produced by selection labor. Selection power remains relatively constant while selection labor modulates across oral, written, and computational modes. A dynamic, stemming principally from the costs of direct human mental labor and effectively compelling the transfer of aspects of human labor to computational technology, is identified. The decision practices of major information system producers are shown to conform with the motivating forces identified in the dynamic. An enhancement of human capacities, from the increased scope of description processes, is revealed. Decision variation and decision considerations are identified. The value of the labor theoretic approach is considered in relation to pre-existing theories, real world practice, and future possibilities. Finally, the continuing intractability of information retrieval is suggested.

Cinderella comes to the Ball: Article 14 and the right to non-discrimination in the ECHR

Article 14 ECHR has often been derided as a Cinderella provision, but during the last few years, this has started to change. This article examines how Article 14 has developed, and may live up to its potential as a powerful non-discrimination principle. The case law developments in relation to the “ambit” requirement in Article 14, the development of indirect discrimination case law, and the approval of positive action, all point to a more substantive conception of equality, which offers protection to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.

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 Self-Defence in National and International Law: The Role of the Imminence Requirement

This article explores the doctrine of self-defence within the context of the challenges directed at the imminence requirement, from the perspective of both national and international law. The article will attempt to illustrate that the requirement of imminence underlines the political character of the self-defence doctrine wherein private force may only be resorted to in the absence of institutional protection. This study will argue that the imminence rule can not merely be regarded as a "proxy" for establishing necessity; rather, the elements of imminence, necessity, and proportionality are inextricably connected to ensure that defensive force is only resorted to when national or international authorities are not in a position to prevent an illegal aggression, and that the defensive lethal force is not abused.