1,721,007 research outputs found
Anti-terrorism control orders: liberty and security still in the balance
No full textThe compatibility of anti-terrorism control orders with Arts 5 and 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 was the subject of litigation culminating in three House of Lords' judgments in late 2007, and a further case on Art 6 will be argued before a nine-panel House of Lords in March 2009. To date, the litigation has required important modifications to be made to how control orders work, but the regime provided by the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 remains essentially intact. The government therefore claims that control orders strike an appropriate balance between the interests of liberty and security. This paper critiques the role played by the courts in challenging control orders under human rights laws. It argues that it is necessary to incorporate the right to freedom of movement into UK law in order to allow a proper balance between liberty and security to be effected by the court
State immunity for torture
No full textThe House of Lords’ ruling in Jones v Ministry of Interior Al-Mamlaka Al-Arabiya AS Saudiya (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and others sets an important precedent in the field of international civil claims for torture. It was also the first to address in detail the ratio of the seminal judgment in Pinochet No. 3, a ruling that has given rise to much speculation as to the relationship between State immunity, jus cogens norms and human rights. This article explores the significance of the Jones case, and, in the light of that ruling, comments more generally upon the wider issue of the extent to which State immunity acts as a barrier to international legal actions for torture brought in domestic courts in both the civil and criminal sphere
Avoiding legal obligations created by human rights treaties
No full textThis article examines the legality of the options that may be open to a State that is unwilling to accept a legal obligation created by a human rights treaty it has already ratified. It briefly addresses the subject of ‘derogation’ from human rights treaties before looking in detail at denunciation of the same. It proceeds to examine the legality of strategies such as entering a late reservation to a human rights treaty and of denouncing the treaty with the sole purpose of entering a new reservation to it
The Evolution of the European Convention on Human Rights. From its inception to the creation of a permanent court of Human Rights
No full textThe European Convention on Human Rights underwent a spectacular evolution over the first fifty years of its life. In recent times the European Court of Human Rights has been compared to a quasi-constitutional court for Europe in the field of human rights, and for some time the Convention has been viewed as a European Bill of Rights. The 'coming of age' of the ECHR system in the late 1990s was marked by the entry into force of Protocol 11, creating a new, full time Court. By contrast those who first proposed a European human rights guarantee were driven by an ambition to put in place a collective pact to prevent the re-emergence of totalitarianism in 'free' Europe. They were motivated by grisly memories of human rights abuse associated with World War Two, and the protection of 'human rights' was seen in that light. When the Convention was opened for signature in 1950 it was viewed by many with scepticism and disappointment. The Convention system took many years to get established. In the mid-1960s doubts were expressed as to whether the Court had a future and in the 1970s the Convention system of control faced a number of serious challenges.This book examines the story of the evolution of the Convention over its first 50 years (1948-1998). It reflects on the Convention's origins and charts the slow progress that it made over the 1950s and 1960s, before, in the late 1970s, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a series of landmark judgments which proved to be the foundation stones for the European Bill of Rights that we know today
History
No full textTells the ‘story’ of the historical development of the concept of human rights and their status in international law. It is divided into three main sections. As the human rights story began on the domestic plane, the chapter starts by considering this (section 2). The focus is on the key developments since the seventeenth century, but in particular since the late eighteenth century. Section 3 turns to international law, examining it from the perspective of human rights over the period up to the Second World War. Finally, section 4 focuses on the efforts to create international human rights law in the 1940s, culminating with the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948.<br/
The United Kingdom and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
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