Welcome to the wonderful world of Human Rights!  Our aim is to provide you with basic human rights law concepts so that you can start your legal research!

A good place to start with would be the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (properly termed the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms).  A general introduction to the ECHR can be found here [PDF].

Next we come to the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), which incorporated part of the Convention into UK law, meaning that citizens can now rely on these Convention rights in domestic courts.

• It came into force in the United Kingdom in 2000 and;
• Contains a set of rights (please see the ECHR brief above) of individuals that are guaranteed by the state.

The workings of the HRA can be found in this briefing document [PDF]. It is important to understanding the workings of the HRA further is the necessary distinction between absolute and qualified rights.

Researching cases on Human Rights is easy...

The internet has made researching easier than ever before!

For UK cases, most of you will be familiar with Westlaw and LexisNexis. These are online case databases, that can be accessed through the UCL Library’s online resources page. Use the Athens login option, and just key in your UCL ID and password. From there, either do a general search on the area (searching on Article 2 right to life, for example), or searching for specific cases using the case name.
[tip: try starting with a major known case or cases in the area and work your way from there, using other major cases cited in those reports and expanding your search to cases in other jurisdictions as well. Remember, this is a ECHR moot, so don’t limit yourself to UK cases!]

You may wish to look up some academic articles on these databases relating to the specifics area of law in question- academic opinions can be persuasive!

There is an extremely useful European Court of Human Rights case law database, which you can use to research ECtHR cases.  If you just type the case name in the field next to “text”, you should be able to find the case.  [Westlaw and LexisNexis also have decisions of the ECtHR, LexisNexis has cases since 1979, and Westlaw, since 1960]

The following provide links to human rights legislation, treaties and organs, as well as general research links.  Human rights legislation and treaties from the HM Courts Service and a good set of general research links on MootingNet.

Human Rights Bibliography

All found in the UCL Library

Alastair Mowbray, Cases and Materials on the European Convention on Human Rights (2nd ed, 2007)

Jean-François Renucci, Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights : freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 2005)

John Wadham and Helen Mountfield, Blackstone’s guide to the Human Rights Act 1998; with a foreword by Jack Straw (Blackstone, 2000)

Freedom of expression in Europe : case law concerning article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 2002)

Directorate of Human Rights, Case-law concerning Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights : forty years of case-law, 1959-1999 (Strasbourg, Council of Europe 1999)

Helen Keller and Alec Stone Sweet (eds.), A Europe of rights: the impact of the ECHR on national legal systems (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Carolyn Evans, Freedom of religion under the European Convention on human rights (Oxford University Press 2001)

David John Harris, Law of the European convention on human rights (Butterworth, 2nd ed., 2005)

Karen Reid, A practitioner’s guide to the European Convention on Human Rights (Thomson/ Sweet & Maxwell, 2nd ed., 2004)

Ali Riza Çoban, Protection of property rights within the European Convention on Human Rights (Ashgate, 2004)

The right of rejected asylum seekers to an effective remedy against decisions on expulsion in the context of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights: recommendation No. R(98)13 adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 18 September 1998 and explanatory memorandum (Strasbourg, Council of Europe, 1999)

The UCL Library has quite a comprehensive set of books on ECHR Law and human rights law in general - search the online catalogue.