David Harris

Every state in the world has undertaken human rights obligations on the basis of UN treaties. Today's challenge is to enhance the effectiveness of procedures and institutions established to promote the accountability of governments. The six treaty bodies that monitor and evaluate state policies and practices play a vital role, but the whole system has been stretched almost to breaking point. It is under-funded, many governments fail to report or do so very late or superficially, there is a growing backlog of individual complaints, broad reservations have been lodged by many states, and the expertise of committee members has been questioned. This volume contains detailed analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of the system, written by leading participants in the work of the treaty bodies. Their recommendations provide a blueprint for far-reaching reform of a system of major importance for the future of international efforts to protect human rights.

An introduction to current debates around the themes of culture, identity and lifestyle. Such debates often begin with the assertion that we live in a society of signs. Features include: summary and critical discussion of some basic approaches in social theory and cultural analysis; key readings of some of the work of writers including Barthes and Giddens; reviews of work in more traditional areas, for example, the sociology of identity and the embedding process found in social life; and advice on further reading.

This chapter discusses Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is described as the ‘least defined and most unruly of the rights enshrined in the Convention’. Article 8 places on states the obligation to ‘respect’ a wide range of undefined personal interests which embrace a number of overlapping and inter-related areas, including some LGBT rights. None of the four interests covered by Article 8(1)—private life, family life, home, and correspondence—is defined in the Convention and their content is a matter of interpretation.

The collection and use of visual evidence is widespread in a wide range of academic
\nand professional activities. The paper explores the similarities and differences of a
\nrange of related phenomena: realism, documentary and authenticity. The status of
\nthe ‘realism effect’ is evaluated in a range of leisure activities with an emphasis on
\ntourism and the significance of realist texts in popular culture in narrative and nonnarrative
\nforms. The creative treatment of the representation of reality in the
\ndocumentary tradition is highlighted. The paper emphasises the pleasures to be
\ngained from ‘experiencing the real’ using semiotics and film theory, in particular.
\nThere is a discussion of the possible ideological effects of these pleasures as well as
\nmore fundamental matters relating to the extent to which we are able to actually
\nexperience the ‘real’ in any meaningful way. The argument develops that the
\npleasures of realist cultural forms may also be found in academic work too. The
\nrepresentations of reality using written and visual forms in ethnography are explored:
\nconsumers of academic work as well as popular cultural forms employ a series of
\ncodes and conventions and these forms may be subjected to post-structuralist
\nanalyses.