Buddhism, Politics, and the Limits of Law: The Pyrrhic Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka. By Benjamin Schonthal. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016.
Published date | 01 September 2017 |
Date | 01 September 2017 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12290 |
This last point underscores Kawar’s focus on the significance of
lawyers’ framing of immigration-related issues. This is particularly
true in those states where human rights norms are explicitly invoked
by lawyers because of incorporation through domestic statute (such
as the UK’s Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European
Convention on Human Rights into British law) or national Constitu-
tion. In such national contexts, lawyers can frame domestic court
immigration litigation according to the human rights approach to
asylum law, which forces courts to examine immigration disputes
through a human rights lens. This raises an interesting empirical
question going forward: are the radiating effects different—and ulti-
mately more beneficial to noncitizens - when lawyers frame their
immigration advocacy in terms of international human rights law
rather than—as in the United States—a matter of domestic law.
One question which Kawar’s research suggests is whether there
is any difference between the radiating effects of litigation or other
legal advocacy on behalf of immigrants who have already entered
the country and thus have greater rights (at least in the United
States) and those who have been stopped at the border. One won-
ders whether litigation has been more or less effective in affecting
immigration in policy in either of these areas
In sum, Kawar’s book is both a methodologically rigorous
empirical study and an important source of context and perspective
for immigration advocates. It will encourage such advocates to
think about the radiating effects of their work, particularly at a time
of significant rollback of immigrant and refugee rights. In explor-
ing legal contestations as culturally productive processes, it can
enlighten and inspire lawyers, particularly in countries with isolated
or intimidated civil society actors.
***
Buddhism, Politics, and the Limits of Law: The Pyrrhic
Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka. By Benjamin Schonthal. New York:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016.
Reviewed by Nick Cheesman, Department of Political and Social
Change, Australian National University; and, Institute for Advanced
Study, Princeton
Buddhist monks have been newsworthy of late, not as practitioners
of a self-abnegating tradition but as proponents of religious nation-
alism. Groups like the Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka and MaBaTha
Book Reviews 741
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