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Book part
Publication date: 26 February 2016

Ursula Gorham, Natalie Greene Taylor and Paul T. Jaeger

This chapter summarizes the core human rights and social justice functions of libraries.

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter summarizes the core human rights and social justice functions of libraries.

Methodology/approach

After reviewing how each chapter of this edited volume offers evidence of libraries’ clear contributions in the area of human rights and social justice, this chapter explores in greater detail how the current environment in which libraries operate impacts their ability to promote human rights and social justice.

Findings

In many communities, libraries are the only institution capable of fulfilling a wide array of social justice and human rights roles. As they seek to fulfill these roles, however, libraries face significant challenges related to the lack of emphasis on considerations of human rights and social justice within the pedagogy, research, and practice of our field.

Originality/value

This chapter serves as a call to action for library practitioners, educators, and researchers to better articulate the social justice and human rights roles of libraries to policy-makers, funders, politicians, and community members.

Details

Perspectives on Libraries as Institutions of Human Rights and Social Justice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-057-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2015

Paul T. Jaeger, Brian Wentz and John Carlo Bertot

This chapter explores the historical and evolving relationship between human rights, social justice, and library support of these efforts through physical and digital access, as…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter explores the historical and evolving relationship between human rights, social justice, and library support of these efforts through physical and digital access, as well as relevant legal frameworks.

Methodology/approach

We explore the connection between libraries, technology, human rights, and social justice. The human rights and social justice functions of libraries are descriptive of what libraries have become in the age of the Internet. Many aspects of the information and communication capabilities that are provided through Internet access have been leveraged to promote human rights and social justice throughout the world.

Findings

There is practical evidence through case studies and survey results that libraries have primarily embraced this direction through offering many individuals without Internet access or technology experience a place of physical access, education, and an ongoing atmosphere of inclusion and accessibility as society embraces an increasingly digital future. This focus on rights and justice exists within varying legal structures related to people with disabilities and to values of rights and justice. Many libraries have also created programs and services that are targeted toward online equity for people with disabilities. This proactive response regarding digital accessibility is indicative of the likelihood that there is an inclusive future for libraries and their services to the broadest of their communities.

Social implications

Highlighting this role and a motto of access for all will enable libraries to expand their significant contributions to human rights and social justice that extend beyond the traditional physical infrastructure and space of libraries.

Details

Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities and the Inclusive Future of Libraries
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-652-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 October 2007

Ann Skelton

Abstract

Details

Crime and Human Rights
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-056-9

Book part
Publication date: 26 February 2016

Ursula Gorham, Natalie Greene Taylor and Paul T. Jaeger

This chapter introduces the role that libraries play in promoting and fostering human rights and social justice within the communities they serve. In describing this role, it…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter introduces the role that libraries play in promoting and fostering human rights and social justice within the communities they serve. In describing this role, it highlights the different ways in which information intersects with human rights and social justice.

Methodology/approach

This chapter offers a brief review of the existing body of literature related to human rights and social justice in the field of library and information science (LIS). After articulating the need for this edited volume, we introduce the four sections in this book: Conceptualizing Libraries as Institutions of Human Rights and Social Justice; Library Services to Marginalized Populations; Human Rights and Social Justice Issues in LIS Professions; and Human Rights and Social Justice Issues in LIS Education.

Findings

The social roles and responsibilities of libraries have expanded greatly in recent years. These roles and responsibilities, however, are not often framed within the discourse of human rights or social justice. Together, the chapters in this book—written by researchers, educators, and professionals—paint a comprehensive picture of the broad range of roles and contributions of libraries in human rights and social justice.

Originality/value

This chapter introduces a book that explores the current efforts of libraries to meet a wide range of community needs (including education, employment, social services, civic participation, and digital inclusion) through the lenses of human rights and social justice.

Details

Perspectives on Libraries as Institutions of Human Rights and Social Justice
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-057-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 July 2022

Stephen Riley

The meaning of justice and dignity have changed over time, as has the idea of a normative or moral ‘foundation’. Given that justice and dignity are commonly ascribed foundational…

Abstract

The meaning of justice and dignity have changed over time, as has the idea of a normative or moral ‘foundation’. Given that justice and dignity are commonly ascribed foundational roles in practical philosophy, this chapter charts important changes in these concepts and changes in how they have interacted. The ideas of rights and status capture the most persistent points of interaction between justice and dignity. However, because rights and status are themselves unstable concepts, and because both rely upon contextual theories of freedom and the state for their meaning, no simple reconciliation between justice and dignity as foundations is possible. In sum, we cannot treat justice and dignity as equally foundational if foundational is taken to mean the final determinant of our obligations.

Details

Human Dignity
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-390-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 4 May 2020

Chris Kendall

This chapter examines the delicate balance achieved by apex courts in new democracies when dealing with impunity for rights violations during times of transitional justice. While…

Abstract

This chapter examines the delicate balance achieved by apex courts in new democracies when dealing with impunity for rights violations during times of transitional justice. While international law has clearly rejected amnesties for past rights violations, domestic politics sometimes incorporate amnesties as part of larger peace settlements. This puts courts in the difficult situation of balancing the competing demands of law and politics. Courts have achieved equipoise in this situation by adopting substantive interpretations and procedural approaches that use international law’s rights-based language but without implementing international law’s restrictions on amnesties. In many cases, courts do this without acknowledging the necessarily pragmatic nature of their decisions. In fact, oftentimes courts find ways of avoiding having to make any substantive decision, effectively removing themselves from a dispute that could call into question their adherence to international legal norms that transcend politics. In doing so, they empower political actors to continue down the road toward negotiated peace settlements, while at the same time protecting the courts’ legitimacy as institutions uniquely situated to protect international human rights norms – including those they have effectively deemphasized in the process.

Article
Publication date: 15 August 2016

Christopher Shaw

This paper aims to use the results of a synthesis of six social science fellowships to explore how alternative framings of the climate justice debate can support fairer climate…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to use the results of a synthesis of six social science fellowships to explore how alternative framings of the climate justice debate can support fairer climate policies.

Design/methodology/approach

The original fellowships drew on sociology, economics, geography, psychology and international relations. Cross-cutting themes of rights, risks and responsibilities were identified following a series of workshops. Results of these workshops were discussed in a number of policy fora. Analysis of the feedback from that fora is used to propose the case for a rights, risks and responsibilities approach to building a more accessible climate justice debate.

Findings

Existing climate policy unjustly displaces a) responsibility for emission reductions, b) risks from climate impacts and c) loss of rights. Foundational questions of acceptable risk have been ignored and a just climate policy requires procedurally just ways of revisiting this first-order question.

Research limitations/implications

The contribution a rights, risks and responsibilities framework can bring to a process of educating for climate stewardship is at this stage theoretical. It is only through trialling a rights, risks and responsibilities approach to climate justice debates with the relevant stakeholders that its true potential can be assessed.

Practical implications

Policy actors expressed strong resistance to the idea of overhauling current decision-making processes and policy frameworks. However, moving forward from this point with a more nuanced and tactical understanding of the dialectical relationship between rights, risks and responsibilities has the potential to improve those processes.

Social implications

Educating for climate stewardship will be more effective if it adopts an approach which seeks a co-production of knowledge. Beginning with the foundational question of what counts as an acceptable level of climate risk offers an inclusive entry point into the debate.

Originality/value

Reveals limits to public engagement with climate policy generated by a ‘justice’ framing.

Details

International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, vol. 8 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1756-8692

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Crime and Human Rights
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-056-9

Abstract

Details

The Citizen and the State
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-040-1

Book part
Publication date: 7 November 2011

Zakiya T. Luna

Using data from a multi-method study with a national reproductive justice coalition, this chapter examines the emergence of the US reproductive justice movement. I first examine…

Abstract

Using data from a multi-method study with a national reproductive justice coalition, this chapter examines the emergence of the US reproductive justice movement. I first examine how reproductive justice emerged in relation to the mainstream women's movements. Then I demonstrate how, due to the relationship between reproductive justice and social identity, the boundaries of the reproductive frame and movements are simultaneously broader and more constrained in meaning than reproductive rights. Finally, I show how (perceived) co-optation leads to tensions between movement sectors and weakens the potential for reproductive justice to reinvigorate activism around reproductive issues. I conclude with how the success of the reproductive justice movement, including around diversity and coalition building, can inform other social movements.

Details

Critical Aspects of Gender in Conflict Resolution, Peacebuilding, and Social Movements
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-913-5

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