Transnational Human Rights Litigation, 1st ed. 2020 Challenging the Death Penalty and Criminalization of Homosexuality in the Commonwealth Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice Series, Vol. 75

This book analyzes the role of strategic human rights litigation in the dissemination and migration of transnational constitutional norms and provides a detailed analysis of how transnational human rights advocates and their local partners have used international and foreign law to promote abolition of the death penalty and decriminalization of homosexuality.

Using examples such as the abolition of the death penalty and decriminalization of same-sex relations, this book traces the transnational networks of human rights lawyers and advocacy groups who engage in constitutional litigation before domestic and supranational tribunals in order to embed international human rights norms in local contexts. In turn, domestic human rights litigation influences the evolution of international law to reflect state practice in a mutually reinforcing process. Accordingly, international and foreign legal citations offer transnational human rights advocates powerful tools for legal reform.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Lawyers, Strategic Litigation, and the Transnational Judicial Dialogue.- Chapter 2. Applying the Lens of Transnational Advocacy Networks to Human Rights Litigation.- Chapter 3.Transnational Legal Citation as a Method of Norm Diffusion.- Chapter 4. Litigation and the Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty.- Chapter 5. BLitigation and the Decriminalization of Homosexuality.- Chapter 6: Conclusion: Transnational Litigation as part of a Comprehensive Human Rights Strategy.