Human rights international protections Flashcards
international human right law
-states recognise human right (already exist)- universal declaration on human rights
-recognition manifests itself in different areas of international law e.g treaty law, custom law
important treaty- European convention on Human Rights
the european convention on human rights 1953
aim- to interpret/ellaborate on the universal declaration of rights and create a court in europe so people can take their govt to court for breach of rights
does the UK honour these treaties?
yes- in article 1 of the ECHR the UK promised the other members of the coucil of eurpoe to secure everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defines in sc1 of the convention
No- the covert human intelligence sources act 2021- “the persons designated for the purpose of this section each have power to grant criminal conduct authorisation (an authorisation for ciminal conduct in the course of.. the conduct of a covert human intelligence source)”
allows criminal behaviour such as torture to be done against peaople such as spys
how does the UK get away with violating the treaties?
-parliamentary sovereignty
-UK is a dualist state (2 legal systems, UK and international) and seperate
-treaty obligatitions only become UK law when they are incorporated via an act of parliament
e.g ECHR only became law in HRA 1998
-just because domestic law allows for international crime does not mean it removes the liability of the state for the perpetration of that crime
what role do the UK courts have with international human rights?
some may argue non-
-Lord Kerr in R (S G) v SOS for work and pensions 2015- domestic courts dont have the jurisdiction to apply treaties that have not been incorporated into national law, the treaties also arent part of the UK law
som may argue can be influential in other ways-
-Lord sumption belhaj v straw 2017- international law can affect the interpretation of ambiguous acts of parliament, can guide the exercise of judicial/ executive discretions, can influence the development of common law
cases
-HM treasury v Ahmed and others 2010- UK supreme court found the UK implementation of UN security council sanctions was unlawful because it violated both common law and ECHR rights
-Al- sirri v SOS for the home dept 2012- UK home secretary argued states free to choose own definition of terrorism, UKSC said issue with govt broad definiton and held could look at internation and comparative legal materials to choose and alternative definition
-keyu and others v SOS for foregin commonwealth and affairs 2015- customary international law is part of the UK common law, the SOS had refused a public inquiry into a 1948 colonial massacre, UKSC found that the obligation in customary international law to investigate such deaths only arose in the last 25 years so can be dismissed
