Christina Allard

Community and Collective Rights: A Theoretical Framework for Rights Held by Groups. Dwight Newman. Series ed. George Pavlakos, Series: Law and practical reason vol. 2. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011. 243 pp. ISBN 978-1-84113-228-0

The emphasis on collective rights is a contested area of law, at least in Western oriented jurisdictions, and states generally refrain from acknowledging rights held by communities and groups whether it be for instance religious, ethnical or indigenous communities. Such rights, it is claimed, rest instead ultimately in the individual. This important book contributes therefore to the ongoing scholarly debate on collective vs. individual rights, and it does so by the viewpoint of moral entitlements. The author, Dwight Newman, now working as a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan College of law in Canada, is sketching a general theoretical framework on collective rights based on moral considerations. By addressing a wide range of collective rights issues within one common moral framework, he thus challenges the notion that collective rights cannot be discussed within a united context. The examples provided as illustrations are however given mostly in the context of religious and ethnical minorities, proving the importance of the theory for indigenous communities and alike. In the Acknowledgements it is informed that the book builds on the author’s DPhil thesis from Oxford University, Faculty of Law. The book is structured into three main parts: (I) The existence of collective moral rights, (II) Moral considerations for collective rights, and (III) Realising collective rights. Part I gives an overview and platform for collectivities as moral right-holders and the relationship between collective interests and collective rights. Part II develops moral requirements necessary to legitimate collective rights-holdings through certain conditions, labeled as Community Conditions. The task of Part III is to lay foundations for how to institutionalize the theory developed in previous chapters of the book. The nine chapters of the book is well structured, providing both an introductory text of what will be addressed and a condensed sum up in the end of each chapter and section, which greatly