Category: Human rights

The Accountability and Remedy Project: Corporate Liability for Human Rights Undergoes Some Research & Development

Published 13 January 2016 by hcornell

Helen Kemp is a GJA Student Ambassador for the 2015-16 academic year. Helen is reading for her Law LLB at Edinburgh Law School. She is a fourth-year student and is writing her dissertation on the role of human rights in international environmental law.

Convincing multinational corporations to protect the rights of people involved in, or affected by, the flourishing of their business is hardly a simple task. Endless frameworks and guidelines may be available to help States induce companies to comply with human rights law, but the quality of life of factory workers in a faraway nation has not usually shown to outweigh the short-term profit brought about by their exploitation.

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) resulted from a decades-long effort to set standards for states to address human rights violations resulting from global business activities.

Jan 13, 2016 Comments closed

Human Rights and Making Change: Looking Backwards and Moving Forwards from the Northern Ireland High Court Decision on Abortion

Published 11 December 2015 by hcornell

This post first appeared on the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights blog from the Faculty of Law at University College Cork.

Dr Catherine O’Rourke is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and International Law at Ulster University Transitional Justice Institute. She is currently also co-coordinator of the Gender Stream of the DFID-funded Political Settlements Research Programme, where she is investigating how international law norms for gender equality influence domestic power-brokering.

In the aftermath of last week’s High Court judgment declaring Northern Ireland’s prohibition of abortion to be incompatible with UK human rights legislation in specific instances, there has been much valuable consideration of the judgment’s legal and political implications, for this jurisdiction and others. In this contribution, I reflect on what the litigation and judgment say about human rights advocacy in Northern Ireland.

Dec 11, 2015 Comments closed

Northern Irish Abortion Law Incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights

Published 11 December 2015 by hcornell

This post first appeared on the European Futures Blog.

In this extended article, Jane Rooney analyses the recent Northern Ireland High Court decision that current abortion law is not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. She suggests that the judgement could have gone further in testing the compatibility of the legislation with the ECHR, and that possible appeals are unlikely to take the politics of Northern Ireland as closely into account.

On 30 November 2015 in the case of The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s Application [2015] NIQB 96, the High Court of Northern Ireland found that Northern Irish law regulating abortion was incompatible with Article 8 (right to private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This was an historical judgement made possible through the conjoined efforts of many, including women directly affected by the legislation, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International.

Dec 11, 2015 Comments closed

What Can Scotland Do?

Published 3 December 2015 by hcornell

Rebecca Smyth is a Global Justice Academy Student Ambassador for 2015-16. In this post, Rebecca reflects on the third in our series of Rapid Response Roundtables on the current refugee crisis. Rebecca also report from the second roundtable, ‘Is the Global Refugee Regime Fit for Purpose?’.

Chaired by Dr Patrycja Stys of the Centre of African Studies, this event was the last of three organised by the Global Justice Academy in relation to the current refugee crisis.

It began with a screening of LIVED’s Learning to Swim, a short documentary that aims to share something of the everyday lives of displaced young Syrians in the Zaatari Refugee Camp, the village of Zaatari, and Amman in Jordan. It’s a very special piece. Through seemingly disjointed snippets of interviews and footage, it gives a sense of the inner lives and daily routines of children and young people caught up in the Syrian conflict. We meet a girl who loves football, kites and fried food, and whose favourite place is Homs, a place of roses and affectionate people.

Dec 3, 2015 Comments closed

The Refugee Crisis: Where to Begin?

Published 23 November 2015 by hcornell

In the wake of the recent attacks in Paris and Beirut, anti-refugee rhetoric has continued to grow in the British press and on social media. In this post, GJA Managment Group member, Dr Kasey McCall-Smith, reflects on her recent visit to a refugee camp in Serbia. Dr McCall-Smith is a Lecturer in Public International Law at Edinburgh, and Programme Convenor for the GJA’s LLM in Human Rights.

Many weeks ago, I had the privilege to visit a refugee camp in Belgrade, Serbia. The experience was double-edged because it was harrowing to speak to and move in and among individuals who were fleeing from horrors that I could never personally imagine. At the same time, there was courage among these people who were travelling thousands of miles, away from their homeland, towards an idea. That idea is something that is often hard to define but what I will simply refer to as hope.

In the Syrian man, who had been on the site for two weeks with his twin one-year old daughters and his wife, there was hope for a landing place where he could raise his daughters without fear.

Nov 23, 2015 Comments closed

International Law and Peace Negotiations

Published 2 November 2015 by hcornell

The Global Justice Academy has launched its Student Ambassadors programme for the 2015-16 academic year. Rosie Ireland and Siobhan Cuming are both students on the LLM in Human Rights. As GJA Student Ambassadors, they co-authored this report on a recent seminar by Phillip Kastner.

In this report we summarise the key points made by Professor Phillip Kastner (University of Western Australia) at a seminar on 9 October titled ‘The Role of International Law in the Context of Peace Negotiations.’

International Law and the Resolution of Internal Armed Conflicts

Today, internal armed conflicts are significantly more prevalent than inter-state conflicts. The resolution of internal armed conflicts is generally more complex than inter-state conflicts; involving a higher level of interdependence and giving rise to a multitude of issues.

Nov 2, 2015 Comments closed

Pregnancy, Choice, and the Lessons of the Past

Published 5 October 2015 by hcornell

Dr Michelle Brock is an Assistant Professor of History at Washington and Lee University, specialising in British History. In this second guest post for the Global Justice Academy, Mikki tackles the current controversy in the US around abortion and the politicisation and policing of women’s bodies – drawing striking parallels with early modern Europe.

In the United States, the last decade has witnessed a growing cacophony of calls from pro-life advocates seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision to legalise a woman’s right to an abortion. Every single current Republican candidate for president, fourteen men and one woman, has declared his or her opposition to abortion in most or all cases.

Oct 5, 2015 Comments closed

The Fast-Eroding Glue of Union: Devolution and the Human Rights Act

Published 18 June 2015 by hcornell

Director of the Global Justice Academy and Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Edinburgh, Christine Bell, first blogged on the difficulties that repeal of the Human Rights Act would pose for the UK’s devolved settlements in May 2015. This blog builds on those initial arguments, first appearing on . It has since been picked up by the UK media.

The Conservative government’s proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and possible withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Council of Europe, would have far-reaching implications for the UK’s devolved administrations and relations with the Republic of Ireland. These run deep into the constitutional marrow of the nations involved; so deep that it is difficult to see how repeal of the Act could take place without their consent. The government’s difficulties in relation to, especially, Scotland and Northern Ireland are significant but different and worth reviewing separately.

Jun 18, 2015 Comments closed

Human Rights Act Repeal and Devolution: Quick Points and Further Resources on Scotland and Northern Ireland

Published 13 May 2015 by hcornell

Can the UK’s Human Rights Act be repealed? What would the process need? Is it even possible? What are the legal implications?

Christine Bell, Professor of Constitutional Law at Edinburgh Law School, Assistant Principal Global Justice and Director of the Global Justice Academy, offers this review of the current debate on repealing the Human Rights Act, and points readers to other available resources.

In the past few days repeal of the Human Rights Act, and in particular its devolution implications have attracted a lot of attention. Today, a new report is launched from a legal expert seminar in April 2015, on the legal implications of repeal of the human rights act (see below). The report provides the full chapter and verse, but here are a few quick points on the devolution implications, with further more detailed and reasoned resources below.

May 13, 2015 Comments closed

Business and Human Rights: the story so far and what next?

Published 8 May 2015 by hcornell

This is a guest post by Sean Molloy, who is a Principal’s Development Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, where he is completing his PhD at the School of Law. Sean edits the Global Justice Academy newsletter, which you can subscribe to by clicking here.

In March of this year I attended a roundtable at Chatham House on the issue of business and human rights. Comprised of state officials, civil society organisations, academics, and corporate representatives, the focus of the event was on the extent to which (or not) a consensus is beginning to form on how to operationalise and implement the UNGP. In this post I wish to convey some of the discussions of that meeting in attempting to articulate the current position, the obstacles remaining and potential solutions going forward. Firstly, a little background is required.

May 8, 2015 Comments closed

Category: Human rights

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