Paper short abstract:

This paper studies the characteristics of the selective invocation in the process of producing homeomorphic equivalents on Human Rights in Buddhism. 

Paper long abstract:

The notion of Human Rights has advocated its own universality since emerging in the modern times, though it was originated and formulated in the midst of the Western culture.  The universality thus advocated in the notion of Human Rights can be no real universality but a merely postulated one which is open to hermeneutic substantialization by the non-Western cultural traditions. 

Both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism have tried to give an ethical foundation to Human Rights.  Human Rights has been grounded within Buddhism on the concepts such as "inter-dependent arising", "the four noble truths", "compassion" and "Buddha-nature".  These concepts were selected among the Buddhistic doctrines and used to justify Human Rights in terms of Buddhism.  It is the selection among the basic doctrines in Buddhism that operates on producing the homeomorphic equivalents in the Buddhistic foundation of Human Rights. 

Paper short abstract:

This paper considers on the gap between legal system and legal order/social situation in Japan,focusing on legal cultures relating to female Ten-no and conjugal name.

Paper long abstract:

From the late 19th century Japan has been establishing a modern legal system, based on the western, first German, ones. After the World War Ⅱ　Japanese government enacted the democratic Japanese Constitution under an American occupation. Even though it has already passed more than sixty years after its enactment, there still, in Japanese society, exist various non-democratic elements which are unsuitable to the Constitution. Namely there is a gap between legal system, mainly based on western one, and legal order/social situation which is based on legal culture. This paper analyses this gap from the following two aspects, (1)first so-called 'female Ten-no problem', namely prohibition of female Ten-no by the Imperial house Hold Law(1947), and (2)secondly the problem of conjugal name, that is the fact that more than 97 ％ couples 'choose' husbands' family names as their conjugal names.

Paper short abstract:

Being religiously minority, Muslims in the Philippines live in the plural legal orders.　By analyzing about their practices and legal cases, this paper discusses about their plural identities and how the particular and universal values interact to construct their identities.

Paper long abstract:

The republic of the Philippines is generally known as a Christian dominant country in Asia, however about 5% of population is consisted of Muslims and there are numbers of indigenous peoples.

Same as the varieties of the population, the normative orders are very plural. The customary, religious and national laws have formed the plural legal reality and the global influences interact with the existing legal plural systems. Policies and legal systems to recognize and realize the pluralistic elements have been in long contestation. Under this situation,　different actors behave according to different normative orders and their behaviors transform the plural legal orders and plural identities.

This paper focuses on particularly Muslim women in their selections of life courses, marriages and divorces. As well as the social changes of the whole society, the mobility of people going abroad and the influence of Islamic resurgence are also taken into consideration as global factors to construct their identities.

Paper short abstract:

Islam defines moral obligations, legal and cultural rights of Muslim women in general. For decades now , there is contestant over who has the right to define these rights for these women. Universal declaration on human rights proposes gender equality in its own terminology. Religious fundamentalist have their own code of conduct and orthodox regimes propose their own charter of control mechanisms. Muslim women in different parts of the world have varied individual perceptions and patterns of conformance. This paper examines conformance, conflicts and ruptures that Muslim women in different parts of Asia are articulating.

Paper long abstract:

The subject of control over women's bodies as an expression of political power has been debated for decades now. In this context status of Muslim women in parts of Asia has invited most attention and controversy. In recent years several countries in Asia have witnessed political and social turmoil and universality of women's rights as a western caricatured subjectivity. This has been questioned both by women in these countries and by scholars working on gender studies from different parts of the world.This paper examines position of Muslim women in a comparative perspective drawing data from primary studies and comparing it with commentaries that appear in the popular media and official UN documents. Primary data is obtained from India and Iran and in-puts received from visiting colleagues and friends from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Secondary data will be drawn form UN websites, debates on gender forums, News papers and journals on women studies. It is an attempt to comprehend complexities of these debates in a holistic perspective.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the neglected theme of the examining the inconsistencies between international human rights and Islam from the Islamic perspective (rather than from the oft-discussed human rights perspective) and seeks ways of reconciling international human rights with Islam as means of evolving genuine universal human rights.

Paper long abstract:

International human rights stemming largely from western traditions embody some values that are different from Islamic values. Previous discussions of these differences do not address the methodological challenges relating to theoretical and thematic frameworks. First, the differences between Islam and international human rights transcend the conflict between religion and human rights, and cultural pluralism paradigms currently used as these differences are more appropriately discussed within the framework of pluralism of civilizations. Secondly, the dialogue between Islam and International human rights has been mostly one-directional as it is premised on reconciling Islam with human rights but not also on reconciling human rights with Islam whereas, both discourses are necessary for mutual understanding between Islamic and Western civilizations and for the emergence of genuine universal human rights.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the local concept of ‘fatherhood’ in the Igembe community of the Kenyan central highlands, and then discusses how ‘father’s rights’ can be or cannot be conceptualised in the local context.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the local concept of 'fatherhood' in the Igembe community of the Kenyan central highlands, and then discusses how 'father's rights' can be or cannot be conceptualised in the local context. In the civil cases over unpaid bride-wealth items filed at state law courts that the author analysed elsewhere, the complainants (mostly wives' fathers) from the Igembe community claiming items to be paid sued their daughter's husbands. Is that claim based on the concept of 'father's rights' to bride-wealth for one's daughter? To tackle this question, this paper should consider several other aspects of fatherhood in the local context. Based on an ethnographical observation, this paper clarifies local conceptualisation of fatherhood, which cannot be well comprehended with the modern human rights discourses based on the legal imagination of autonomous individuals.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores James Tully’s ideal constitutional convention of ‘mutual recognition of cultural diversity’ from the perspective of claims for both gender equality and claims for the recognition of ethnic or religious cultural difference and considers whether and to what extent this requires a commitment to legal pluralism.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores James Tully's ideal constitutional convention of 'mutual recognition of cultural diversity' and considers whether and to what extent it requires a commitment to legal pluralism. The paper asks whether claims to gender equality (which can be viewed as claim for cultural recognition) and claims for the recognition of ethnic or religious cultural legal norms must necessarily conflict as the existing controversies around legal pluralism suggests.

Recent popular debates in the UK and Canada on Muslim Arbitration Tribunals and Sharia Councils have presented cultural diversity, gender equality and legal pluralism as incompatible. This paper first analyses the assumptions which have informed these debates and argues rather that legal pluralism can facilitate the compatibility of these constitutional principles. Consideration is then given to the extent to which 'other' law is 'recognized' in the United Kingdom and to whether the modes and sites of recognition accord with the constitutional norms of 'mutual recognition' as an ideal for contemporary democracies. As a case study the paper presents the author's current empirical research which analyses the engagement and non-engagement by successive governments and NGO's with the UK Muslim Arbitration Tribunal's initiative against forced marriage