Costas Douzinas

Addressing the paradox of a contemporary humanitarianism that has been abandoned in politics in favour of combating evil, Costas Douzinas, a very well respected author of several important books on human rights and legal theory, examines the most pressing international questions.

Using examples of ethically justified foreign policy and war in Eastern Europe, this text argues that human rights will end unless their utopian ideal is reassessed and introduced into practice.

"Amidst the turmoil of economic crisis, Greece has become the first European experiment of Left rule in a sea of neoliberalism. What happens when a government of the Left, committed to social justice and the reversal of austerity, is blackmailed into following policies it has fought against and strongly opposes? What can the experience of the Syriza government tell us about the prospects for the Left in the 21st century? In this engaging and provocative book, Costas Douzinas uses his position as an "accidental politician", unexpectedly propelled from academia into the world of Greek politics as a Syriza MP, to answer these urgent questions. Weaving together theoretical insights as a leading radical thinker with his inside knowledge of events and personalities, he examines the challenges facing Syriza since its assent to power in 2015 and draws out the theoretical and political lessons from one of the boldest and most difficult experiments in governing from the Left in an age of austerity. Examining issues ranging from the coup against the Syriza government to the impact of the refugee crisis, from Grexit to Brexit and the future of Europe, this timely book will be of immense importance to anyone seeking to understand the Greek struggle and its implications for resistance, politics and culture in the contemporary world"--

Written in a lively and critical format, this book delves into human rights law in a way that is understandable whilst also penetrating. With contributions by world-class academics, this companion looks at the contemporary operation of human rights law and provides succinct coverage of the whole subject.

This book is about the global crisis and the right to resistance, about neoliberal biopolitics and direct democracy, about the responsibility of intellectuals and the poetry of the multitude. Using Greece as an example, Douzinas argues that the persistent sequence of protests, uprisings and revolutions has radically changed the political landscape. This new politics is the latest example of the drive to resist, a persevering characteristic of the human spirit. The EU and the IMF used Greece as a guinea pig to test the conditions of social reconstruction in times of crisis. But the manifold resistances turned the object of experimentation into a political subject and overturned the plans of elites. The idea and limits of democracy are redefined in the place of their birth. -- Publisher description.

Responding to Alain Badiouʹs "communist hypothesis", the leading political philosophers of the Left convened in London in 2009 to take part in a landmark conference to discuss the perpetual, persistent notion that, in a truly emancipated society, all things should be owned in common. This volume brings together their discussions on the philosophical and political import of the communist idea, highlighting both its continuing significance and the need to reconfigure the concept within a world marked by havoc and crisis. -- vol 1. back cover.