In attempts to improve the efficiency of development efforts over the past few decades private sector participation in the delivery of basic services has been promoted to a varying extent. Roughly in tandem with this, there has been movement to increase the accountability of corporations, particularly transnational corporations (TNCs), for human rights violations. Rather than engaging directly in the legal debate about the applicability of human rights standards to corporate activity, this article essentially looks at the issue from the inside out through the collection of empirical evidence. By focusing on the emergent right to water as a case-study, it examines how TNCs engaged in water service delivery in the development context understand and use the language of rights. In doing so, it discusses how current engagement by the TNCs with human rights language may influence proposed corporate human rights accountability frameworks and current attempts to close the globalisation governance gap.

Recent surveys in the UK and the Netherlands indicate that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the justice system. But who are these ‘critics’ of the justice system? Most previous studies only produced general statistics, while the persons behind the figures remained invisible. By contrast, this article aims to put a face to these numbers and discusses two ways of analysing the profile of the critics. Based on a review of existing survey data, the article first looks at their ‘demographic profile’. Next, the article also considers a second, alternative, approach. Based on their level of legal awareness and legal identification, it distinguishes four different ‘normative profiles’: legalists, loyalists, cynics and outsiders. Moreover, the article shows how these normative profiles may be applied in future comparative studies on legal mobilisation and legal protest. It is concluded that combining both approaches will help us to look beyond common stereotypes and consider the critics of the justice system as real persons with genuine concerns about the administration of justice in their country.

This article applies Systemic Functional Grammar and Critical Discourse Analysis to assess the linguistic choices of feminist and masculist reproductive rights rhetoric. It explains these methodologies and provides a discursive history of the reproductive rights movement. Publications of advocacy groups and the mass media are analysed as data of current rhetorical trends. These interpretations conclude that female-affirmative rhetoric offsets contemporary feminist efforts by marginalising men and excluding considerations of paternity. This article suggests that in solely emphasising women's procreative rights, such feminist rhetoric potentially renders women to the role of primary parental agent, reinforces traditional sex-stereotypes, and incites inter-sex antagonism.

The three books reviewed here all address the question of the efficacy of international law and advance concerns about its future trajectory, albeit in contrasting ways. As has been well documented, the role of international law – specifically in the regulation of the use of force – has undergone significant scrutiny in the post-Cold War era. To a much greater extent than during the Cold War, contemporary conflicts and crises are invariably discussed with reference to international law, and the legality of a particular use of force has become a significant factor in assessing its legitimacy; one need only think of the importance placed on the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This increase in prominence suggests that international law has become more important, and unsurprisingly those used to the discipline's previous role as exotic curio have welcomed this sudden promotion (Robertson, 2000).

Should the law support union recognition by employers? If so, what form should this legal support take? These are the questions that Alan Bogg addresses in his excellent monograph, The Democratic Aspects of Trade Union Recognition. His focus is New Labour's 1999 statutory recognition procedure for trade unions, which he situates within the historical context of the United Kingdom's distinctive approach to the relationship between labour law and the social practice of collective bargaining – aptly (and famously) named collective laissez-faire by Otto Kahn-Freund (1972). Combining political philosophy and legal analysis, Bogg argues for robust legal support for trade union recognition that preserves the autonomy of trade unions to determine their own constituency and recognises their distinctive power to strike. Inspired by the idea of deliberative democracy and an ethical commitment to freedom as non-domination, he argues that civic republicanism provides the best normative basis for trade union recognition procedures. He contrasts this normative framework with the rights-based individualism and state neutrality characteristic of the liberal approach, which, he argues, is embodied in the United States and Canadian versions of industrial pluralism. Bogg also demonstrates the ‘yawning chasm between New Labour's civic rhetoric and New Labour's liberal legal reform agenda’ (pp. 118–19) when it comes to trade union recognition procedures. He concludes by offering a series of proposals that would enhance union recognition and further the values of freedom as non-domination, democratic participation through deliberative democracy, and community.