The report review steps taken by the Musharraf government to combat honour killings through an examination of legal reforms in the years between 2003- 2006. The phenomenon of honour killings is analysed through the lens of legal pluralism where the negative synergies in the interplay between customary law (riwaj) and religious law (Sharia) has undermined […]
This research project (2002-5), was a collaboration with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Johannesburg) investigating the role played by courts in the linked processes of democratic consolidation and social transformation in South Africa. The ideological dominance of constitutional democracy, combined with extensive legal and judicial reforms, increased the potential contribution of courts to the processes […]
This book project investigates the extent to which courts in Latin America and Africa have been able to say ‘no’ when the executive branch has overstepped its democratic mandate. The issues were explored in collaboration with local researchers as well as leading US and UK scholars in the field. The findings are presented in a special […]
The Acceptability of Child Protection Interventions: A Cross-Country Analysis
This project examines the population´s values and interpretations of the child´s best interest’s principle within different societies, as well at the courts justifications of their best interest’s judgments. The principle of the child´s best interests is recognized by all states, but it is a principle that is controversial and contested within and between welfare states. […]
Discretion and the Child’s Best Interest in Child Protection
The research project “Discretion and the child’s best interests in child protection” aims to unlock the black box of discretionary decision-making in child protection cases by a comparative-empirical study of how discretionary decisions are made and justified in the best interests of the child. There are huge research gaps in this important area of the […]
Political, civil and social rights for citizens are prerequisites for a functioning democracy. Furthermore, legal developments in various areas of the welfare state have important implications for the construction of ‘social citizenship’, i.e. the institutional framework which ideally, should ensure citizens’ opportunities to participate in society as equal and free citizens. The focus of the research […]
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a legal document with global reach and thus has a cosmopolitan imprint. The CRC is the most far-reaching document that explicitly states the rights of children. The convention serves young human beings, the child, and constitute a critical standard that can and should be […]
Universitetsforlaget. 2016-2017
Elevating water rights to human rights: Has it strengthened marginalized peoples’ claim for water?
Abstract: Water scarcity remains a huge problem in many countries, especially where a growing population compete with demands for water from industry and agriculture. In 2010, a United Nations General Assembly resolution recognised the right to safe and clean drinking water as a human right. However, the actual impact of this relatively new human right to […]
Advisory board: Daniel Brinks, Aninka Claassens, Duncan Kennedy and Alf Gunvald Nilsen. The PluriLand project aims to develop a theory of land rights claiming in plural legal regimes through cross-regional investigation of conflicts over land affecting the land rights of vulnerable communities. Despite the protection of indigenous, traditional and/or communal land rights in many legal […]