Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Automatic aggregation of large-scale data is increasingly conceived as central in the production of ecological knowledge. This article examines the implications of the employment of automation techniques and ‘data-driven analysis’ in long-term biodiversity monitoring. What are the pathways and paradoxes in the possible public acceptance of automated data-sets as a trustworthy source for use in global protection and regulation of biodiversity? This article suggests that the precautionary discourse aid top-down measures for the public acceptability of the use of such techniques. Automated biodiversity monitoring offers distinctive advantages to further precautionary goals in terms of a faster, cost-effective and less messy way of collecting data, at a large scale over long periods of time. However, it contradicts other values implied through precaution – for instance the opacity and reification of the construction of risk. How do the specific forms of data-making relate with specific forms of risk governance, and what implications does this have for helping us to understand appropriate ways of political representation in governance? Can paradoxes attendant to introducing a form of construction of data help understand the nature of the exercise of governmental power?

This article examines the problematic processes in a case that has had few parallels in Indian judicial history. The apex court in T. N. Godavarman took upon the responsibility of deciding how forest resources in the country should be accessed and who is (or is not) to have such access. Purportedly done to protect the environment, through the ‘clarification and fine-tuning’ of national forest-laws, the case has seriously affected the life, livelihood, and habitat of millions of marginal groups. Recent trends demonstrate the wider trend of constitutional courts assuming the roles of adjudication, administration and legislation, all rolled into one, whereby they become problematic sites for creating a hierarchy of conflicting public interests, which claim constitutional validity from different vantage points. Thus, constitutional values of ‘protection of environment’ and ‘justice — social, political and economic’ ‘are pitted against each other’ where unelected courts take it upon themselves to define the legitimate precincts of the theoretical discourse of sustainable use / development; and importantly also implement it into ‘everyday’ ‘reality, in the way it feels fit’. The article seeks to make sense of this contemporary process of forest governance.

Grant of environmental clearances is a key step in the statutory framework to balance ecological concerns about the natural environment, concerns of neighboring communities about the quality of their immediate surroundings, including issues of sustainable access of poor and marginal communities to common property resource for their everyday subsistence, and of providing access of natural resources to the industry in the name of seeking socioeconomic development through facilitating intensive exploitation of nature for industrialization. Given the limitations of a monopolistic reliance of techno-scientific expert that may be dominated by the concerns of the industry, as well as the epistemic and legitimational need for having public consultation and participation in environmental clearances demonstrated in sociological literature, this paper investigates the existing room for public participation in this decision-making process in India. It identifies the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process as central to the grant of environmental clearances in India. The paper describes and analyses the extremely limited space for public participation in the existing EIA regime, despite formal requirements for public participation and hearing. It argues for a broad based EIA that has public consultation at multiple stages right from screening, scoping and appraisal during EIAs, through post-clearance monitoring as well as compliance of clearance conditions.

This book examines the EU regulatory framework in the Genetic Modification of agriculture and food to see how adequately EU law treats serious contestations about the development and use of GMOs. Since linkages between law, technology and public contestations have a crucial dimension in the shaping of democratic societies, the space EU law provides for publics outside of the scientific experts to shape the regulation of GMOs becomes significant. By examining the employment of the precautionary principle and (the advices from) public bioethics committees in GMO regulation, this book examines the policy claim of public participation as a mechanism to represent and mediate public contestations about the use and regulation of GMOs.

Following is a poem titled: ‘Hear me O scribe!’ that emerges out of my interactions with some young Kashmiris. It was a collective feeling amongst them that there was too much focus on the conflict, and as residents of the contested terrain, they became mere subjects for researchers. As one young student quotes a slogan used during many civil and political movements, it was ‘Nihil de nobis, and sine nobis’ (“Nothing about Us without Us”!). Their intent was not to accuse anyone but to question the ontology of the subject and object dichotomy; or in simple words, who can represent whom? This poem is an attempt to reflect upon the idea of representation and inclusion of voices from the field.

M oataz El-Fegiery's book Islamic Law and Human Rights: The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt presents a comprehensive account of the Muslim Brotherhood's evolving thought on Islamic law and international human rights. Broadly, the book opposes the setting up of a shari'a state in a democratic regime with religious diversity. It proposes the reform of traditional Islamic law as proposed by hardline Muslim jurists in favor of an " evolutionary interpretation of Islamic law " in a constitutional setup. The political transitions following the Arab Spring witnessed the influence of Islamists in politics. Focusing the impact of the Muslim Brotherhood on the debates on Islamic law in the Muslim world, El-Fegiery suggests that the protection of human rights requires the " transformation " of Islamists rather than their exclusion.

Freedom of religion has been in the limelight all over the world in the past few years. It grabbed our attention due to controversies regarding the content of different legal documents of various governments (democratic and non-democratic) around the world or due to the manner in which religious values and practices have been empirically treated by both State and non-State actors. Several issues are at the centre of global attention, including women's rights, heresy laws, transgender issues, ethnic cleansing, ill-treatment of religious minorities, ban on display of religious symbols, xenophobia, and so on. Freedom of Religion or Belief: An International Law Commentary is the first academic commentary which treats the issue of freedom of religion or belief as a human right (v). Freedom of religion or belief was included in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 and in article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1966. Published in 2016, the Freedom of Religion or Belief marks fifty years after the adoption of ICCPR and sixty-eight years after the inclusion of religious freedom as a human right in UDHR. The authors, Heiner Bielefeldt, Nazila Ghanea, and Michael Wiener, rely on their academic expertise and practical experience to make a brilliant contribution to the scholarly discourse on freedom of religion or belief from an international legal perspective. The authors worked with the United Nations and conducted research on in human rights, international law, and freedom of religion. Their in-depth knowledge of the subject is reflected in this thoroughly researched book. Fifth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, Kazakhstan. photo credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas The commentary offers a detailed analysis of interpretation and implementation of relative international standards, including ICCPR. It is structured according to the thematic categories of the Special Rapporteur's framework for communications. Freedom of Religion or Belief also discusses relevant jurisprudence from Treaty Bodies, which is evident from the table of cases and legislation given at the beginning of the commentary. The book is comprehensive because it includes relevant national cases and legislations and is not confined to the cases and legislation of these bodies. It is divided into five parts with further subdivisions. These parts comprise of discussion on freedom of religion or belief, discrimination, vulnerable groups, intersection of freedom of religion or belief with other human rights, and cross-cutting issues. Acknowledging the selective use of commentaries, the

https://acuns.org/review-of-freedom-of-religion-or-belief-an-international-law-commentary/