More than a decade has passed since the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP),1¹ an exceptional instrument that has both consecrated the struggle of indigenous peoples as a legitimate international concern and provided valid responses to indigenous claims. Can the UNDRIP have an impact on the struggle of other groups? And why are indigenous rights high on the UN and the international agenda? In Seeking Justice in International Law: The Significance and Implications of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Barelli provides a response to these important and underexplored questions, comparing the special status of indigenous peoples to that of other minorities that share some characteristics with indigenous groups. The main question addressed in the book is whether the UNDRIP has marked a consistent trend in international law as a legal system ‘that promises to provide valid responses to the demands for justice of disempowered and vulnerable groups’ (p 4).

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Jeroen Temperman and András Koltay’s edited collection, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression: Comparative, Theoretical and Historical Reflections after the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, provides an in-depth and nuanced exploration of the laws regulating blasphemy and related concepts including religious insult, defamation of religions and religious hatred, from the perspective of freedom of expression. While the Charlie Hebdo massacre provides the inspiration behind this timely volume, its treatment of the subject matter extends significantly past this one event to a comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of the often neglected topic of blasphemy laws in the West. In the introduction, co-authored by Temperman and Koltay, the editors of the volume signal their intention to explore three key themes or issues: first, is the operation of blasphemy laws in the West, ‘exactly how “dormant” these laws are’ and why States are increasingly repealing these laws (pp 2–4). Second, they seek to explore the fragmentation within international law in relation to the acceptability of blasphemy laws from the perspective of freedom of expression, focusing, in particular, on the discrepancy between the approach of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the one hand and other human rights mechanisms on the other, including the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee, Special Rapporteurs and the Rabat Plan of Action (pp 4–9). Finally, this volume seeks to unveil the variety of perspectives within ‘Western’ legal doctrine concerning the acceptability of blasphemy laws (pp 9–12). In so doing, the edited collection provides a comprehensive overview of both the current situation and contemporary debates surrounding blasphemy and freedom of expression in the West.

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right to lifeHuman Rights Committee General Comment 36Article 6 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

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This article first analyses how courts, by applying the right to health as a trump against rationing decisions, have become a relevant healthcare policymaker in Brazil. Based on empirical findings, it argues that right to health litigation makes the Brazilian public health system less fair and efficient. It then discusses three responses to the negative impact of litigation on the health system: the public hearing held by the Supreme Federal Court and the test established thereafter; the recommendations by the National Council of Justice aimed at building courts’ institutional capacity; and Federal Law 12.401/11, which created a new health technology assessment system. Based on a comparative institutional analysis, it concludes that the latter response is the most adequate because it keeps the substantial decisions on the allocation of healthcare resources in the institution that has better capacity to make them and facilitates the judicial control of procedure.

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