Scotland plans to extend human rights protections (original) (raw)
Related papers
Getting it Right: Human Rights in Scotland
2012
Human rights impact on all of our lives every day. They belong to all of us and can be a powerful driver of humane, dignified and fair reatment in our homes, our workplaces, our schools, our hospitals and are homes, in fact everywhere we go in all aspects of our everyday lives. Human rights set the conditions in which we should all be able to live with dignity, free from degrading treatment and with the capability to live a full life. Realising this potential requires the right structures and processes to be in place to influence outcomes. That means ensuring that the right laws and institutions are in place to respect, protect and fulfil the full range of civil and political and economic, social and cultural rights. It means taking effective steps to put those rights into practice, for example through policy and strategy setting and in the allocation of resources. Monitoring is also required to make sure that what happens in practice meets the requirements of international human rights law. Scotland needs a more systematic approach to assure - and not assume - the realisation of human rights in our day to day lives.
Realising international human rights: Scotland on the global stage
The International Journal of Human Rights, 2017
The impetus for, and the challenges to human rights implementation today remain as salient and complex as they were when the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action promoted National Plans of Action as one of several operational measures intended to revitalise commitment to the realisation of international human rights. 1 Today more than thirty countries have National Plans of Action. 2 Scotland's National Action Plan (SNAP)the first for Scotland, launched on 10 th December 2013, and the first of its kind in the UK-acts as a 'roadmap' towards 'realising the full potential of human rights.' 3 In common with other National Action Plans, SNAP seeks to clarify lines of accountability, create concrete consensus-based milestones, and promote a national human rights culture. This collection of papers is inspired by what went on behind the action plan. It was born in the wake of the process, led by the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC), which informed the baseline evidence of national lacunae and good practice in the protection of international human rights in which SNAP is grounded. The papers provide an insight into Scotland's advances in realising rights, through engaging with and building upon the initial work coordinated by the SHRC to create a baseline study of how effectively
The devil is in the details: entrenching human rights protections in the UK’s devolved nations
Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly
In states with multilevel governance systems, such as the United Kingdom (UK), human rights are subject to variable gradations of implementation based on the political will and the legal competence of the subnational governments to implement international law. Entrenching rights through incorporation secures domestic enforcement, which, in turn, paves the way for proactive human rights culture change and guards against human rights regression. This article examines the future of increasing human rights protections in the devolved nations of the UK in the wake of the Incorporation Reference decision. First, the article reflects on the opportunity to entrench international human rights protections through incorporation as one form of implementation. Next, Scotland’s path to increasing implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) will be presented, including an examination of the key features of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill. These feat...
Brexit and the renationalization of the Human Rights protection: the way backward?
Contemporary European Studies, 2015
Parliamentary elections of 2015 shifted UK closer to the possible exit from the EU. Th is unprecedented step will have signifi cant impact on the UK legal system including the protection of human rights as the ties between national and European level may disconnect or change the procedures and principles applied. Th is article claims that possible UK withdrawal from the EU will signifi cantly challenge the level of human rights protection due to closing direct path to international level and limiting the jurisdiction of ECJ. In the worst case scenario the UK might become a closed system with decreasing quality of human rights protection.
2018
A politicised and contested human rights framework in the United Kingdom – constitutional processes during periods of constitutional and political instability – The United Kingdom 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union – delayed repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998 and a British Bill of Rights – European Union law and Council of Europe human rights framework as pillars of human rights and democracy lack of coherent national structure for substantive rights regime in the UK – lack of clarity in terms of future human rights regime in the UK and devolved regions – lack of safeguards protecting human rights as part of constitutional settlement – reliance on common law rights insufficient rights and remedies derived from various European sources swept away without sufficient safeguards – loss of rights and remedies without sufficient parliamentary scrutiny impact at the supra-national level undermining UK as global actor – impact at the devolved sub-national level further fra...
Scotland in the EU: The EU Is an Empowering, Not a Blackmailing Tool
It is clear that the current developments – with no regard to the concrete outcome of the Scottish referendum – open up a new chapter in the history of Europe. It is argued that the EU should not be used as a blackmailing tool to ensure that Scotland remains part of the UK: the European Union cannot possibly be construed as an instrument to punish democratically and legally sound deviations from the pre-existing reality of 28 Member States: an existing state necessarily cannot have any bigger ethical value (if any at all) compared with a newly-formed state in Europe. Unlike what Prof. Weiler submits, Scottish independence only becomes a brand of ‘Euro-tribalism’ if Scotland – either in the expression of its own will, or as a result of mounting pressure – decides not to be part of the European family of nations united in the European Union. EU law offers enough flexibility to accommodate Scotland in a speedy way. What is needed, however, is strong political will, which might be lacking.
Justiciability of All Human Rights: Scottish Independence as Redress for British Human Rights Abuses
2021
to the administration of the College of Law. Special thanks to Julie Ann Embler for her incredible research support lo these many years, and to my daughter Elizabeth Piccard Reischmann for her shared interest in the Highlanders and for being an outstanding travel companion, even when her mother persisted in asking far too many personal questions of virtually every Scottish person with whom we had even the briefest encounter in July 2013. In my own defense, I did pay for her plane ticket (as well as my own; the research grant was not quite that generous).