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iNTeRNATioNAL AND CoMPARATive LAw oN THe RiGHTS oF oLDeR PeRSoNS Ralph Ruebner, Teresa Do, and Amy Taylor, Editors Lake Mary, FL: Vandeplas, 2015, 622 pp., $ 69.95 (softcover)
Rapid and steep population aging is very much a worldwide contemporary phenomenon presenting a rich variety of economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities for all nations, whether acting independently or collectively. The planet's people growing older, in absolute as well as relative terms, also entails many legal and ethical implications. The eclectic set of essays collected in International and Comparative Law on the Rights of Older Persons, taken together, address a wide panoply of those important implications and the questions that they compel scholars, practitioners, and policymakers and influencers in law and gerontology to confront.
This volume was born from a foundation-supported 2014 International Elder Law and Policy Conference organized at John Marshall Law School in Chicago, with a key intended result being the drafting of a Chicago Declaration on the Rights of Older Persons. The organizers' intent was realized and the resulting Chicago Declaration document is reprinted in the 130-page Appendix in both English and Spanish, along with several earlier international declarations, charters, statements, and other examples of "soft" laws that utter lovely aspirations but ultimately lack any of the tools of meaningful enforcement that characterize real or "hard" law. Indeed, the essays in the first part of this volume are specifically dedicated to advocating for "soft law" international...