Humanity across International Law and Biolaw

An examination of how the concept of humanity is mobilized to make legal arguments in different areas of law.

What do the words 'human' and 'humanity' mean, legally speaking? Who operates outside the boundaries of mankind? This book takes the reader through the use of the concept of humanity and its negative counterparts in different fields of law, including international criminal law, biolaw and the law of the sea.The concepts of humanity, human dignity and mankind have emerged in different contexts across international law and biolaw. This raises many different questions. What are the aims for which 'humanity' is mobilised? How do these aims affect the ensuing interpretations of this concept? What are the negative counterparts of humanity, mankind and human dignity? And what happens if a concept developed in one particular context is taken up in another? By bringing together research from international law, biolaw and legal theory, this volume answers such questions by analysing how the concepts overlap and contradict each other across the disciplines. The result is not an examination of what humanity is but rather what it does and what it brings about in a variety of contexts.