Drawing on broader legal-political discourses within the party-state and institutionalised academia, this book shines a light on one of the most controversial legal principles in Chinese criminal justice: the presumption of innocence.

It argues the reasons why there is no presumption of innocence in China, tracing the curve, or evolution, of academic discourse about presumption of innocence against the backdrop of changing politics, or varying emphases on national conditions, from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. The book deepens our understanding of the trajectory of criminal justice reforms in the party-state and shows how the more open and liberal phases of the reform era opened up some space for pluralist views and constructive criticism. In comparison, the second wave of autocratisation of the system influenced the conception of the criminal and paved the way for an illiberal turn.

If in its simplest form, hermeneutics is a quest for understanding, then part of that quest will always include striving to understand being and the meaning of being. This open access book takes that ambition seriously, arguing that hermeneutics and metaphysics, so central to philosophical thought but so rarely put in tandem, are two complementary fundamentals of human existence.

Metaphysical Hermeneutics puts forward the argument for a hermeneutical metaphysics in service of philosophy's basic aim: to make sense of our experience. Jean Grondin builds his argument for this combined discipline around the idea of 'sense' - a theme that is both hermeneutical and metaphysical. What we seek to glimpse is not just a figment of the mind but always the meaning of something. Grondin calls on one of the founding figures of contemporary hermeneutics Hans-Georg Gadamer to test his theories, singling out the metaphysical dimension of Gadamer's ideas and questioning his seeming embrace and rejection of that dimension. Rooting these questions in the human search for meaning is a major contribution to the scope and resources of hermeneutic philosophy.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Montreal.

This open access book hinges on 3 broad but interlinked elements: sustainable development as a concept, sustainable development in the Global South, and implementation challenges.

The advent of the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda have contributed to the deepening of the concept of sustainable development within global and national policy schemes. The fact that sustainable development is crucial for our very survival is no longer a contested issue; rather, the key concern now is how this can be achieved equitably by reconciling competing priorities and concerns of the Global South and the Global North. While the Global South countries are eager to adopt and integrate the 2030 Agenda in their respective policy frameworks, local contexts are often at odds with the global model of sustainable development.

The book examines national capacities and institutional arrangements in countries in the Global South. It considers the challenges of integrating sustainable development in national policy frameworks. This includes the role, interactions, and inter-dependence of different branches of international law in, inter alia, protecting human rights, promoting access to justice, ensuring environmental justice, guaranteeing social protection, and safeguarding the rule of law for sustainable societies. This book explores the emerging patterns and processes of development projects that have either succeeded or failed, critical reflections on what has been achieved and whose interests the projects served, and the costs and benefits of particular interventions.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

What role does 'reason' have in tackling the catastrophic ecological situation of the early 21st-century?

Can the concept shrug off its problematic role in Western epistemology and find a new place and function in dealing with the Anthropocene? In Ecological Reasonings, Kilian Joerg argues that we ignore reason at our peril.

This book revolves around the idea that in order to salvage reason, we must include it in the current move to pluralize the key concepts of Western philosophy - where we once talked of nature, science and technology, we now talk about natures, sciences, and technologies. In the same way, it is time to reconceptualize reason as reasonings - a diverse and multi-perspectival wealth of interactions that can create a vital alternative to the mainstream academic thought. Drawing on a broad span of theoretical traditions including new materialism, eco-feminism, embodied performance and speculative philosophy, Joerg weaves countless voices and aspects together to demonstrate the rich texture of his pluralized vision. The impact of these new reasonings on the pressing challenges of our time can be seen in the sheer scope of these elements, from the role of artificial intelligence to the post-truth society and how science can shape our own self-understanding.

Under the Fourth Republic since 1999, the challenge Nigerian leaders face like never before is how to create a state that matches the expectations of their diverse peoples at home and abroad. Taking this proposition as starting point, this book advances proposals for a human-right policy, referred to alternately in the work as principled foreign policy, for Nigeria under the Fourth Republic, taking advantage of the inestimable opportunity afforded by General Muhammadu Buhari's departure from the political scene on May 29, 2023, after the famine, domestically and externally, wrought by his two terms of office as President. It is a broad-ranging argument, draped in the less arcane constitutional vocabulary and material of human rights, for thoroughgoing reforms at home and abroad as the only antidote to the nation-building dilemmas Nigeria confronts in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Buhari's departure marks the end of military teleguidance of Nigerian politics under the Fourth Republic in the camouflage of democratic rule, a birthmark of remote control dating back to the first military intervention in the country in January 1966.

These momentous events within Nigeria coincide with equally epoch-making developments in the UK, Nigeria's former colonial overlord, with ripple effects in Nigeria, signified by the death of Queen Elizabeth II, after seven decades on the throne, and the emergence of Prince Charles as King of England. A new monarch in Britain adds to the opportunity that falls open for the reconfiguration of Nigeria's external relations with ramifications for the application of human rights in those relations. Despite its known disabilities, Nigeria has the potential infrastructure, including its sizable population, to conduct a human-right policy, if its leaders rationalize the country's resources more wisely.

This book argues for the pragmatist thesis of the primacy of praxis on a phenomenological basis. Demonstrating the relevance of phenomenology, it provides a systematic overview of the contemporary pragmatic landscape, taking into account not only a family of neo-pragmatic approaches but also the current pragmatic readings of phenomenology. This volume offers an innovative formulation of the primacy of practice thesis based on the genetic reformulation of Heidegger's notions of disclosure, Dasein, and average intelligibility (Das Man). Investigating the dynamic interrelation among those notions, the author arrives at the phenomenological conception of forms of life or average background practices and argues that a form of life is not a pragmatic condition of meaningfulness but an outcome of the dynamic process of meaning-formation. This text concludes that the formation of meaning has no overarching origin but sources from the bundle of disparate practical spaces, and is 'anarchic' in nature. It appeals to students and researchers working in phenomenology and philosophical anthropology.

This open access book critically examines the policies and practices related to climate-related human mobility in Asia-Pacific and the legal and policy protection framework for climatically displaced migrants (CDMs) through an interdisciplinary human rights-based approach. While covering the policy and theoretical dimensions of mobility, it also evaluates the issue through empirical studies. The book illustrates how interdisciplinary rights-based approaches address and identify gaps in the protection framework for the region regarding dimensions of climate change displacement, migration, forced migration, susceptibility to climate change, and typology of climate change-induced displacement. Presenting multiple case scenarios, it recommends a legal mechanism based on human rights in a region brimming with variety and multiculturalism.
Bringing together voices from the Asia-Pacific Academic Network on Disaster Displacement, the book examines issues that are immediately relevant in countries where they are living and working. In addition to academic perspective, the chapters also bring perspectives from positions held in national human rights institutions and government. They bring insight into lived experience and policy processes, seeking to avert, minimize, and address displacement, including through general disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation initiatives, as well as specific initiatives around emergency preparedness for response and planned relocation and resettlement. The chapters examine diverse forms of human mobility, including displacement, planned relocation, and forced immobility. The combination of studies focusing on both sudden onset and slower onset movement is also distinctive. With a thorough understanding of the interdisciplinary rights-based approaches to the issue, students, researchers, policymakers, administrators, and all those engaged in studying these topics can quickly evaluate and appreciate how the rights of CDMs are protected on a national, regional, and international level in Asia-Pacific.

This book contributes to the discourse on disability in Africa as an issue of systemic exclusion characterized by the discrimination and often complete segregation of persons with disabilities (PWDs) in various African countries. Despite the inclusive promise of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as well as the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Africa, the situation has not actually improved for PWDs in Africa. Given the powerful evidence of the devaluation of PWDs in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is high time to reflect on the experiences of persons with disabilities in education, along with other forms of discrimination they encounter. The book's respective chapters assess how well the existing legal frameworks, policies and practices in most African countries have met the needs for inclusion of children and adults with disabilities.

The social and economic rights of persons with disabilities are protected in the constitutions of most countries and enshrined in the normative frameworks that most African leaders have adopted and ratified. These commitments need to be borne in mind when thinking about the present and the future. Inclusive development is an investment and must be viewed as part of a package of reforms that are connected to substantive social protection and improvements in realizing other socio-economic goods. Indeed, a range of alliances are needed to advance the goals of 'leaving no one behind', ensuring 'education for all', and delivering on the African Union's call for the development of policies, programmes and requisite budgets for the realization of inclusive education for persons with disabilities.

Wherever there's a rule, there is someone with the power to apply or ignore it-or add to it, in the interest of justice. From enforcing chores to issuing life sentences, decision-makers deliver flawed and sometimes arbitrary outcomes. But is their use of discretion good or bad overall? As a society, should we seek to minimise or maximise discretion, with all its potential for bias and other kinds of human error?

Reframing our understanding of justice and ethics, philosopher Barry Lam argues that while use of discretion-whether by a sports referee, a parent, a police officer or a judge-can never be perfect, removing it has even more problematic effects. Mandatory arrests and sentencing laws have not eliminated bias, but have corrupted the courtroom, institutionalised lying and brought about even more unjust and arbitrary results. Fewer Rules, Better People is a bold, riveting treatise that sheds new light on political debates about law and justice while aiming to prepare us for the imminent threat of more "perfect", discretion-less rule-enforcement by AI.