A Critical Study of Conscience and Conviction through the Work of Brownlee Tanisha Agarwal Institute of Law, Nirma University Abstract Kimberley Brownlee’s book Conscience and Conviction explores the nature of Conscience and Conscientious conviction and throws insight upon acts of civil disobedience, justifying them with innovative arguments. The book is divided into two parts- Morality and Law. The first part talks about morality of conviction and how civil disobedience is justified by a duty based moral right of conscience. The second part relates conviction to law and how civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished. I will critically examine the main themes of the book through my own inputs and examples and by drawing comparisons from real life and works of notable philosphers.
It also support that human rights are subject to interpretation as the principles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are too abstract (Bell, 1996). In this sense, relativism, the main opposing theory of universalism, use culture instead of state identity to justify a variation in moral rights. Relativism defines human rights as products of ‘social deliberation’ and so can vary from a culture to another, contrary to universalism, which sees human rights inherent to the human nature. In this sense, human rights are subject to interpretation, as culture is the main source of the validity of moral right. Cultural relativity is an undeniable fact (Donnelly, 1984), and relativism, in its positive form, protect differences between culture as a quality of freedom (Avonius and Kingsbury,
The paper will also look into the whether the international courts have the independence and powers to initiate and ensure a fair trial or are they limited by the paper based laws and political pressures. Further the paper will look at the plausible ways to counter fair-trial limiting tendencies that cloud the intentions of the international tribunals. 2. CRITERIA FOR A FAIR TRIAL In order to assess whether the International courts and ad-hoc tribunals are fair in their approach or not, it’s important to analyse the standards by which these trials should be judged. To assess this is not as straightforward for these courts are sui generic in nature.
How did the judiciary of the Netherlands solve the conflict between freedom of expression and discriminatory hate speech in the second wilders case? Introduction The right to freedom of speech is a fundamental human right protected by treaties of several global and European institutions. In a democracy it might be necessary to avoid certain forms of speech that offend or promote hatred against others based on intolerance. The right to freedom of expression is considered essential for politicians and specifically for opposition politicians. The two Wilders cases display the conflict that can arise between freedom of speech and between the protection of a group of people from discriminatory hate speech.
A constitution is a set of fundamental and entrenched rules governing the conduct of an organisation or nation, setting up its idea, character and structure. It is typically a short document general in nature embodying the aspirations of values of its scholars and subjects. (Business Dictionary, 2015). A constitution is a definitive power any action, which contradicts the rules of the constitution, will be both unconstitutional and unlawful. It helps to recognise the rights and freedoms of citizens through a bill of rights, which works both to protect citizens and to confine the power of the state.
4. Regulation of racist commentary and the constitutional objectives 4.1. Introduction This section considers whether the regulation of racist commentary will assist in the establishment of a South African community that is tolerant of its diverse citizens. A useful point of departure is the insight that an attempt to regulate racist commentary may stop racist utterances but is unlikely to change the racist mind-set of any person. The suppression of racist commentary can in fact render racist mind-sets more persistent.
According to the Cambridge dictionary, a simple definition of anti-discrimination laws is “laws opposed to or intended to prevent discrimination treatment of someone because of their age, sex, disability, race, sexual harassment, and so on)”. However, a more complex definition according to the article “Deliberative freedoms and Asymmetric features of Anti-discrimination law” defines anti-discrimination laws as “anti- discrimination law existence is to protect people’s interest in possessing a set of ‘deliberative freedoms’ – that is, freedoms to make decisions about how to live their lives without having to take into account, as a cost, their ‘normatively extraneous traits’ (such as gender, race, and age)” (Smith, Campbell 248). According to the article “The Importance of Anti-discrimination and workers’ compensation laws on the Provision of workplace Accommodations following the onset of a disability”, it states that “The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was the first federal disability-based anti-discrimination law that applied to a broad
In accepting the limitations which sovereignty imposes on international law, it is vital to take account of whether these limitations can really weaken the effectivity of international law in general. The answer is in the affirmative but it should still be realized that there is so called monistic and dualistic theory of Hans Kelsen to be considered. According to Alina Kaczorowska (2010), the relationship between international law and municipal law can be discussed in terms of the monistic/ dualist debate. Public International law leaves each country to decide on how international law and its municipal law will interact. From this, one could infer how sovereignty of each state can somehow prevail.
The Due process Clause restricts states from depriving the people of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (Griswald, 96). The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is what the Court followed to make it required for states to uphold marriage licenses of same-sex couples from other states. The reasoning behind this being that the denial of same-sex couples to marry is the denial of same-sex couples’ equal protection under law. If the right to marry is guaranteed to opposite-sex couples, then the equal protection of rights and liberties need to be offered to same-sex
All this concepts are been by different theorist. Firstly the critical race theory is a collection of activists scholar interested in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism and power: (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001). The transformation that they are striving for it was going to be achieved at a point where races need to view each other as one. The critical race theory is motivated by study of conventional civil rights. The critical believe that racism it is something that is normal in a society and it is just away in which people live: (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001).