In Defence of Principles

Download or read book In Defence of Principles written by Andrew S. Thompson and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2010-09-09 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 9/11 and the onset of the "war on terror," the principal challenge confronting liberal democracies has been to balance freedom with security and individual with collective rights. This book sheds new light on the evolution of human rights norms in liberal democracies by charting the activism of four Canadian NGOs on issues of refugee rights, hate speech, and the death penalty, including their use of difficult, often controversial legal cases as platforms to assert human rights principles and shape judicial policy-making. The struggles of these NGOs reveal not only the fragility but also the resilience of ideas about rights in liberal democracies.