Canadians like to see themselves as champions of human rights in the international community. Closer to home, however, the human rights system in Canada - particularly its public institutions such as commissions and tribunals - has been the object of sustained debate and vehement criticism, based largely on widespread myths about how it works. In Speaking Out on Human Rights, Pearl Eliadis explodes these myths, analysing the pervasive distortions and errors on which they depend. Canada's human rights system, a unique legal tradition operating within a powerful modern constitution, is a fundamental mechanism for ensuring the practical application of our national commitment to tolerance and inclusion. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Canada's leading human rights experts and extensive original research, Eliadis explores the evolution of commissions and tribunals as vehicles of public policy and considers their mandate to mediate rights conflicts in such contested areas as hate speech, religious freedoms, and sexuality. She provides a frank assessment of how Canada's human rights system functions and argues that misplaced critiques have prevented urgent and necessary discussions about the reforms that are needed to improve fairness and equality before the law and to ensure institutional independence, impartiality, and competence. Speaking Out on Human Rights shows how our human rights system plays a unique and important role in the rights revolution both in Canada and internationally and offers promising avenues for its future development.
Pearl Eliadis is a lawyer specializing in democratic governance and development, and has undertaken evaluations internationally and in Canada with a focus on human rights. --
How do governments govern today and how well do they do it? How do governments choose the tools or instruments they will use to get things done? In today's world, how could these decisions be improved from the standpoint of efficiency, effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability? "Designing Government" brings together leading experts to examine the "instrument choice" perspective on government and public policy over the past two decades. The authors examine such issues as accountability, effectiveness, sustainability, legitimacy, and the impact of globalization. The debate is enriched by contributors from several countries who provide a comparative context and, most importantly, help chart a course for the future. Moving beyond the traditional regulatory sphere and its preoccupations with deregulation and efficiency, the authors trace the complex relationships between instrument choices and governance. "Designing Government" encourages the reader to consider factors in the design of complex mixes, such as issues of redundancy, context, the rule of law and accountability. These latter factors are especially central in today's world to the design and implementation of effective instrument choices by governments and, ultimately, to good governance. The authors conclude, in fact, that seeing instrument choice itself as part and parcel of designing government and achieving good governance is both the promise and the challenge for instrument-based perspectives in the years ahead. Contributors include Hans Bressers (University of Twente), Neil Gunningham (Australian National University), John Hoornbeck (University of Pittsburgh), Margaret Hill (Infrastructure Canada), Michael Howlett (Simon Fraser University), Bridget Hutter (London School of Economics and Political Science), Pierre Issalys (Université Laval), Réjean Landry (Laval University), Roderick A. Macdonald (McGill University), Larry O'Toole (University of Georgia), B. Guy Peters (University of Pittsburgh), Michael J. Prince (University of Victoria), Sean Rehaag (University of Toronto), Arthur B. Ringeling (Erasmus University), Stephen J. Toope (McGill University), Michael J. Trebilcock (University of Toronto), Frédéric Varone (Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium), and Kernaghan Webb (Carleton University).
Canadians like to see themselves as champions of human rights in the international community. Closer to home, however, the human rights system in Canada - particularly its public institutions such as commissions and tribunals - has been the object of sustained debate and vehement criticism, based largely on widespread myths about how it works. In Speaking Out on Human Rights, Pearl Eliadis explodes these myths, analysing the pervasive distortions and errors on which they depend. Canada's human rights system, a unique legal tradition operating within a powerful modern constitution, is a fundamental mechanism for ensuring the practical application of our national commitment to tolerance and inclusion. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Canada's leading human rights experts and extensive original research, Eliadis explores the evolution of commissions and tribunals as vehicles of public policy and considers their mandate to mediate rights conflicts in such contested areas as hate speech, religious freedoms, and sexuality. She provides a frank assessment of how Canada's human rights system functions and argues that misplaced critiques have prevented urgent and necessary discussions about the reforms that are needed to improve fairness and equality before the law and to ensure institutional independence, impartiality, and competence. Speaking Out on Human Rights shows how our human rights system plays a unique and important role in the rights revolution both in Canada and internationally and offers promising avenues for its future development.
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