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The argument in this chapter addresses the issue of why rights should be justified, and what the processes of such justification are. The first section of this chapter addresses this particular issue and suggests that there are certain sorts of rights that need to be justified by reference to core moral rights, so that they can command a measure of acceptability. The second part of the chapter maps the three different ways in which the right of secession has been justified by political philosophers. The third section suggests that the ‘remedial right only’ theory or the just cause theory proves appropriate for contested secessions. Still, we have to take on board dilemmas and moral considerations that might not find place on the agenda of liberal political philosophers based in the West and theorizing for the West. The right of secession appears then much weaker.

Drawing on scholarship from political science, economics, history, and sociology, this chapter describes how core rights foster individual and collective effects that advance women’s rights. While scholars have long recognized how education and labor force participation enhance a woman’s agency, advances in core rights also facilitate the political representation of women’s interests. By encouraging the development of women’s rights subconstituencies, facilitating stronger political organization, spurring broad attitudinal change, and fostering women’s socioeconomic development, core rights provide politicians with strong incentives to support advances in gender equality. The remainder of the chapter raises potential limitations of the core rights framework and generates testable implications of this perspective.

This chapter summarizes the degree to which cultural, international norms-building, and core rights effectively explain the status of women’s rights. Conventional explanations for why women’s rights advance are either overstated or incomplete across each of the four issues examined. Cultural and religious barriers to gender equality appear weak over many aspects of women’s rights, while international advocacy may only be an efficacious strategy in specific cases. Fostering core rights, however, appears to be a more propitious way to advocate reform. In addition to being more broadly effective, strategies emphasizing core rights may be less controversial, and allow activists to partner with those interested in economic development to improve levels of female education and labor force participation.

This chapter examines the status of women’s reproductive rights by investigating abortion laws and family planning rights across countries. While the conventional wisdom holds that religious norms strongly influence the level of reproductive choice that states afford, there have been remarkable advances in women’s rights across countries of various cultural and religious backgrounds. To what extent do religion and culture, international norms-building, and core rights influence women’s reproductive rights? While religious and cultural norms shape abortion policy, they have little to no effect on women’s exercise of their family planning rights. Further, though women’s rights treaties and organizations appear to improve the level of reproductive autonomy states afford, reproductive rights depend much more centrally on the status of core rights, especially education.

This chapter explores the conventional wisdom that unequal nationality rights are a problem limited to non-Western countries, and that women’s rights advocacy facilitates reform by challenging states discriminatory practices. Nationality rights are often referred to as “the right to have rights,” as citizenship is generally a precondition of political rights and access to state services (e.g., education and health care). Examining a woman’s right to an independent nationality and to confer citizenship to her children across countries, the data show that cultural and international norms-building explanations are either incomplete, or poorly explain the status of women’s nationality rights. Instead, across the nationality rights examined, advances in core rights are correlated with greater equality for women.

Drawing on Unity Dow’s Citizenship Case, a renowned example of women’s rights reform in Botswana, this chapter introduces the three central theories of how, where, and why women’s rights evolve: culture, international norms-building, and core rights. While culture and religion are largely seen as the principal impediments to gender equality, advocacy by women’s rights groups and international institutions is widely accepted as the way to bring about reform. Often overlooked in debates about women’s rights is consideration of the central role played by fostering core rights. This chapter also presents the book’s central premise: that culture and international norms-building explain changes in gender equality much less effectively than is commonly recognized. Finally, it summarizes the main contributions, discusses the methods and data used, and offers a brief overview of the remaining chapters in the book.

Part II, ‘Doctrinal Perspectives’, is structured in two chapters: Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. The main thrust of Chapter 3 is to unravel whether states are obliged, under international human rights law, to adopt a National Human Rights Action Plan (NHRAP), and if so, what is the nature and the scope of this obligation. To this end, a content analysis of all the nine core human rights conventions, General Comments, reports, and concluding observations is conducted. The findings of this content analysis show that each of these conventions places upon states parties an immediate obligation to adopt a NHRAP which must be geared towards realizing the rights embodied in the conventions.

In the written contribution that it made to the preparation of the Brighton Conference (18–20 April 2012) on the reform of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) proposed several amendments to the Convention for states to consider. Three of these were accepted: a change in the age-limit for judges, the removal of the power of the parties to a case to veto relinquishment to the Grand Chamber, and a shorter time-limit of four months for making an application to the Court. The year 2012 was a year of transition and change in the leadership of the institution. From a quantitative perspective, in 2012 the Court delivered 1,093 judgments. All Grand Chamber judgments are of at least high-level importance.