Invigorating human rights academia
Volume 1, October 2008
I was delighted, if rather surprised, to be asked to become the first Patron of the UCL Human Rights Review. The delight was to be involved in such a valuable enterprise. The contents of this review are truly outstanding.
The idea of bringing together contributions from students and from staff under a student Editor-in-Chief works very well. It is common in the United States, where a student Barack Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review, but rare in the United Kingdom. UCL has been a leader in the UK field, first with the Jurisprudence Review and now with the Human Rights Review. That one student body can produce two such quality publications is a great achievement and testimony to the excellence of the UCL educational experience.
The surprise was to be chosen from the host of candidates much better qualified than I. I am not a UCL graduate or in any way associated with your Faculty (truth to tell, had I come to London instead of Cambridge, it would have been to King’s . . . where I would also have gone on the staff had I not remained at the Law Commission and eventually become a Judge). I am one of those ‘timorous souls’ whose caution in the development of human rights is so critically but constructively discussed by Tom Rainsbury. I was clearly a deep disappointment to him in both the Animal Defenders International (political advertising ban) and Countryside Alliance (hunting ban) cases. I can only hope that the much less cautious approach we showed in the Northern Ireland case of Re P (adoption by unmarried couples), which was decided after he had written his paper, will be more to his liking. And I can take comfort that Rodney Austin approves of the minority opinions in YL (private care homes performing public functions) although Dawn Oliver does not. There is much more food for thought (and not only for timorous Law Lords) in this compilation and I hope that it enjoys the wide readership that it deserves.
Brenda Hale of Richmond
September 2008
An account of our hugely successful HR Review launch evening and access to the three papers presented by Baroness Hale of Richmond (Law Lord), Judge Dean Spielmann (of the ECHR) and Professor Dawn Oliver (Professor of Constitutional Law, UCL) as part of a Symposium on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are all available here.
Dawn Oliver on Human Rights and the Private Sphere
Dawn Oliver’s article draws from the case of YL v. Birmingham City Council to explore the implications that would flow from giving ‘horizontal effect’ to European Convention rights.
Rodney Austin on Human Rights, the Private Sector and New Public Management
Austin criticises the minority approach for wrongly basing its interpretation of what amounts to a ‘private authority,’ on the private nature of the body providing public services and the private medium of service provision.
Tom Rainsbury on Their Lordships’ Timorous Souls
This paper evaluates the “mirror principle” which has recently been embraced by the senior appellate court
Theo Rycroft on The Rationality of the Conservative Party’s Proposal for a British Bill of Rights
Article summary coming soon
Colm O' Cinneide on The Right to Equality: A Substantive Legal Norm or Vacuous Rhetoric?
Colm O’Cinneide provides a critical overview and analysis of the legal concept of equality
David P Norris on Are Laws Proscribing Incitement to Religious Hatred Compatible with Freedom of Speech?
Can an incitement to religious hatred law ever be reconciled with the effective protection of free expression?
Stephen Guest on Respect for Bad Thoughts
Stephen Guest argues that bad thoughts should be respected because the possibility of having them is bound up in objectively fundamental elements of being human.
George Letsas on No Human Right to Adopt?
Is it possible to discern a right to adoption and what its nature might be, even with the absence of a specific European Convention on Human Rights provision?
Tara Usher on Adjudication of Socio-Economic Rights: One Size Does Not Fit All
The article analyses competing approaches to Socio-Economic rights adjudication put forward by a range of domestic courts.
Geoffrey Yussouf on Global Human Trafficking and the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime
This article attempts to formulate a definition of the global human trafficking and identify its root causes in view of social and economic factors, in countries of both supply and demand.
Jörg Fedtke on Book Review: Human Rights: between Realism and Idealism, by Christian Tomuschat
Jörg Fedtke provides a mixed response to the ambitious project of the writer.