This book is intended to provide students with some understanding of the variety of approaches to human rights taken by a selection of the world’s legal systems.  By including cases from both the United States and the European human rights system, the book should enable students to consider differences between legal systems deriving from a more or less common tradition. Japanese cases offer a view of the legal system of a developed, non-Western country, and Indian cases give an idea of the approach taken by a developing country with a legal system greatly influenced by that of a former colonial power but also by its own tradition. The book includes a brief introduction intended to give the student some understanding of the structures of the Japanese, European, and Indian systems.

The topics addressed in this book were selected as being among the most basic personal rights a legal system could address. How far persons may go in criticizing the government, the extent to which the law protects the right to form groups for whatever purposes members may deem appropriate, and the extent to which the government seeks to control religion are all fundamental measures of the scope of personal freedom individuals enjoy. Students accustomed to American approaches to these issues will probably be surprised at the differences in assumptions in different systems regarding, for example, the circumstances in which human rights concepts do, or do not, limit the an individual’s ability to obtain damages for an alleged defamation.

This book can be a useful element in any course aimed at acquainting students with the range of disagreement among different societies as to just what the idea of “rights” means in practice.