Opinion
Britain Should Not Repeal the Human Rights Act
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By Michael Posner
Since its decisive victory in recent U.K. elections, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party has threatened to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) and possibly withdraw from the Council of Europe. On Wednesday, bowing to pressure from senior Tory leaders, Cameron agreed to suspend plans to repeal the law for wider consultation.
Opposition to the HRA is based on the view that the European human rights system imposes burdensome restrictions on British courts, especially in criminal justice and immigration-related cases, and infringe on national sovereignty. Cameron’s desire to cast off the law sends an unfortunate message that the United Kingdom may be retreating from some of its time-honored commitments to human rights. Beyond the U.K.’s borders, the HRA’s repeal would be carefully noted and cited by authoritarian governments to justify their rejection of international human rights norms. It is not hard to imagine leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin citing the U.K.’s efforts to reject the European convention as Exhibit A in defense of their poor human rights records.
Introduced in 1998, the HRA incorporates the foundational rights covered in the European Convention on Human Rights into U.K. law. It requires British authorities, from the central government to local councils and police, to adhere to these standards. Conservatives have long resented the influence of the European human rights system and the constraints it imposes on U.K. courts — for example, in deportation cases involving terrorism suspects.
Read full article as published in Al Jazeera America
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Michael Posner is a Professor of Business and Society and Co-Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
Opposition to the HRA is based on the view that the European human rights system imposes burdensome restrictions on British courts, especially in criminal justice and immigration-related cases, and infringe on national sovereignty. Cameron’s desire to cast off the law sends an unfortunate message that the United Kingdom may be retreating from some of its time-honored commitments to human rights. Beyond the U.K.’s borders, the HRA’s repeal would be carefully noted and cited by authoritarian governments to justify their rejection of international human rights norms. It is not hard to imagine leaders such as Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin citing the U.K.’s efforts to reject the European convention as Exhibit A in defense of their poor human rights records.
Introduced in 1998, the HRA incorporates the foundational rights covered in the European Convention on Human Rights into U.K. law. It requires British authorities, from the central government to local councils and police, to adhere to these standards. Conservatives have long resented the influence of the European human rights system and the constraints it imposes on U.K. courts — for example, in deportation cases involving terrorism suspects.
Read full article as published in Al Jazeera America
___
Michael Posner is a Professor of Business and Society and Co-Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.