Search results for ""author richard falk""

The Arab Spring has consistently confounded expectations. While many in the West believed that the uprisings would usher in a new age of liberal, secular democracy in the Middle East, in reality their outcomes have proven to be both complex and contradictory. Most ominously, many countries have already experienced a dramatic counterrevolution, in the form of renewed dictatorship, while others have simply descended into chaos and internal conflict. Richard Falk, a distinguished scholar of international law and former UN Rapporteur on Palestine, has been writing on the Arab Spring since its inception in 2011. Chaos and Counterrevolution brings together his collected writings on the uprisings and their aftermath across the region, and offers a unique perspective on these momentous events. Through essays whose subjects range from the Syrian civil war and the emergence of ISIS to the coup in Egypt and the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, Falk explores how and why the Arab Spring has drifted so far from its original goals, and demonstrates how the West has exacerbated the problem through inept and counterproductive interventionism. Chaos and Counterrevolution provides invaluable insight into what has already become one of the defining episodes of our age.

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This book focuses on global structures that are producing new patterns of North/South and rich/poor domination, as well as exerting dangerous pressures on the carrying capacities of the planet, arguing that any hopeful response to these threatening developments requires the fundamental revision of such basic ideas as sovereignty, democracy and security.

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Richard Falk has dedicated much of his life to the study of the Israel/Palestine conflict. In Palestine's Horizon, he brings his experiences to bear on one of the most controversial issues of our times. After enduring years of violent occupation, the Palestinian movement is exploring different avenues for peace. These include the pursuit of rights under international law through the UN and International Criminal Court, and the new emphasis on global solidarity and non-violent militancy embodied by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS). In focusing on these new tactics of resistance, Falk refutes the notion that the Palestinian struggle is a 'lost cause'. He also reflects on the legacy of Edward Said and the importance of his humanist thought in order to present a vision of peace that is mindful of the formidable difficulties of achieving a just solution to the long conflict.

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Turkey's mixed human rights record has been highly politicized in the debate surrounding the country's probable ascendance to membership in the European Union. Beginning with the foundation of a secular republic in 1923, and continuing with founding membership in the United Nations and participation in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Turkey made significant commitments to the advancement of human rights. However, its authoritarian tradition, periods of military rule, increasing social inequality, and economic crises have led to policies that undermine human rights. While legislative reforms and civil social activism since the 1980s have contributed greatly to the advancement of human rights, recent progress is threatened by the rise of nationalism, persistent gender inequality, and economic hardship. In Human Rights in Turkey, twenty-one Turkish and international scholars from various disciplines examine human rights policies and conditions since the 1920s, at the intersection of domestic and international politics, as they relate to all spheres of life in Turkey. A wide range of rights, such as freedom of the press and religion, minority, women's, and workers' rights, and the right to education, are examined in the context of the history and current conditions of the Republic of Turkey. In light of the events of September 11, 2001, and subsequent developments in the Middle East, recent proposals about modeling other Muslim countries after Turkey add urgency to an in-depth study of Turkish politics and the causal links with human rights. The scholarship presented in Human Rights in Turkey holds significant implications for the study of human rights in the Middle East and around the globe.

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