Making Equal Rights Real: Taking Effective Action to Overcome Global Challenges

Making Equal Rights Real brings together leaders from around the world who have been working effectively to increase equal economic and social rights, ranging from rights in the workplace to property ownership and education. The contributors tell the detailed stories of effective approaches to implementing equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities in North America, women in Africa, children in the Middle East and sexual minorities in Asia. They also describe approaches taken around the world to increase equal rights for people living in poverty, for those living with disabilities and for all people seeking the information they need to hold their government accountable for implementing everyone's rights. The book addresses what can be done by policymakers, civil society, non-governmental organizations, lawyers seeking to implement equal rights legislation and advocates working in the community, as well as those developing constitutions and negotiating international agreements.

Table of Contents:
Part I. Conventions and Constitutions: 1. Forging effective international agreements: lessons from the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities Michael Ashley Stein and Janet E. Lord; 2. Ensuring equal rights in constitutions: public participation in drafting economic, social and cultural rights Jill Cottrell; Part II. Laws and Policies: 3. Putting economic rights into practice: strategies from labor and employment law Benjamin Sachs; 4. Promoting equity in economic rights: the case of gender and land rights Elisa Scalise and Renée Giovarelli; 5. Equalizing social and cultural rights: approaches to equity across ethnic and racial groups Grace-Edward Galabuzi; Part III. Budgets and Information: 6. Public access to information: the keystone to claiming and defending rights Agnès Callamard; 7. Government budgets and rights implementation: experience from around the world Ann Blyberg; 8. Budgets, information and participation: civil society approaches to increasing rights accountability Roberto Bissio; Part IV. Case Studies of Successful Cross-Cutting Approaches: 9. An integrated approach to advancing children's rights and participation in Jordan Samia Bishara-Rizeq, Sirsa A. Qursha and Laila S. Abdul Majeed; 10. Working within communities to increase gender equity in Zambia Robyn Wisken; 11. Realizing equal rights in practice for people with disabilities in Argentina and the United States Mary MacLennan; 12. Guaranteeing legal rights for sexual and gender minorities in Nepal Alexandra Lesnikowski.

About the Author :
Jody Heymann is the Founding Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University. An internationally renowned researcher on public policy and equity, Heymann has authored more than 180 publications, including eleven books. She has served as an advisor to policymakers around the world. Her work has been featured widely, in Business Week Inc. Magazine, Portfolio.com, Forbes, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Financial Times, MSNBC, Good Morning America and Fox News, among other leading national and international media. Adèle Cassola conducts comparative research at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University, where she leads an initiative analyzing the protections established in the constitutions of all UN member states across a number of life contexts in which discrimination can occur, including education, work, health, family and political and civic participation.

Review :
"[This] volume provides useful perspectives from scholars and practitioners on how community education, budget policy, participatory legal drafting, and other processes that have only recently garnered attention affect the realization of rights guarantees... of particular use to students, advocates, and scholars of advocacy interested in rights in action." -- J.D. Marshall, Carthage College, Reviewing for Choice Magazine