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OxHRH

Constitutional Changes in Scotland – I: Incorporation of International Treaties, Devolution and Effective Accountability

Katie Boyle - 30th March 2021

Access to Justice| Children's Rights

Scotland is on the precipice of significant subnational constitutional change through a programme of incorporation of international treaties. On 16 March 2021, the Scottish Parliament unanimously enacted the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill, incorporating the rights of the child into domestic devolved law. In addition, on 12 March 2021 Scotland’s National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership […]

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Youth Led Litigation Highlights the Intergenerational Impact of Climate Change

- 26th March 2021

Children's Rights| Environmental Rights| Right to Equality and Non-Discrimination| Right to Life| Right to Privacy

The impact of dangerous climate change on our children and future generations has been highlighted by campaigns around the world such as Fridays for Future, which grew out of Greta Thunberg’s brave step of starting a ‘school strike for climate’ back in August 2018. Litigation led by youth has also begun to play its part […]

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African Human Rights Court holds vagrancy laws incompatible with African human rights instruments

Nalinaksha Singh and Nayoleeka Purty - 4th February 2021

Children's Rights| Equality and Non-Discrimination| Gender| Socio-Economic Rights

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights on 4 December 2020, delivered a historic Advisory Opinion against vagrancy laws (laws which criminalize the status of individuals as being poor, homeless etc. as opposed to specific wrongful acts) and decriminalized these offences. At present, the penal codes of at least 18 African countries define a “vagrant” […]

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OxHRH

President Biden and the War on Children

Andrew Hilland - 30th January 2021

Children's Rights

On entering office last week, President Joe Biden was greeted by an in-tray unprecedented in US history: a global pandemic that has already claimed 400,000 American lives, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the repercussions of a violent insurrection orchestrated by the outgoing President. Yet Biden has also undertaken to restore US […]

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Czech Constitutional Court: No Recognition of Foreign Adoption by Same-Sex Couples

Barbara Havelková & Terezie Boková - 29th January 2021

Children's Rights| Equality and Non-Discrimination| Relationship Rights| Right to Privacy

The recent decision of the Czech Constitutional Court (‘CCC’), Pl. ÚS 6/20, against allowing recognition of foreign adoption decisions in Czechia is harmful in outcome and evasive and formalistic in its reasoning. The case was brought by a same-sex couple who are civil partners and adoptive parents to two children under the law of New […]

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Can trans children consent to puberty blocking drugs? The High Court of England and Wales doubts it.

Tatiana Kazim - 15th December 2020

Children's Rights| Equality and Non-Discrimination| Gender Equality

If you are a transgender child living in England and Wales, what treatment can the NHS offer you? Until recently, one of the main options was a prescription of puberty blocking drugs (PBs), available through the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. PBs suspend the maturation of the gonads […]

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A historical precedent: IACtHR recognizes breach of the right to equality and non-discrimination in the enjoyment of a socioeconomic right on intersectional grounds of gender, poverty and race in Fireworks Factory case

Natalia Brigagao - 13th November 2020

Children's Rights| Equality and Non-Discrimination| Gender Equality| Socio-Economic Rights| Socio-Economic Rights and Labour Rights

In July 2019, I wrote a blog post introducing the main arguments presented to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) through an amicus curiae brief. The case concerned Brazil’s neglect to prevent and remedy human rights violations that arose from an explosion at an irregular, high-risk fireworks factory in the city of Santo Antônio […]

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Kenyan Lessons on the right to education as a human right amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic

Alvin Attalo - 3rd November 2020

Children's Rights| Socio-Economic Rights

In BPA v Directors, Brookhouse Schools,  a group of parents ofminors at Brookhouse Schools, a private school, challenged the introduction of the virtual learning programme, following the shutdown of schools by the Ministry of Education due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In support of their case, the petitioners argued that the school administration’s decision to conduct […]

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Pakistan: Discriminatory rules preclude Afghan refugee children from attaining secondary education

- 30th September 2020

Children's Rights| Migration Asylum and Trafficking| Socio-Economic Rights

In 2012, the Board of Secondary Education in Karachi (BSEK), made it mandatory for ninth grade students to possess a Child Registration Certificate. The certificate serves as an identity for nationals below the age of 18. Refugee children cannot obtain it. They are instead provided with Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, which merely entitle the […]

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OxHRH

Unaccompanied migrant minors and ‘protective custody’ practices in Greece: light at the end of the tunnel?

Vasiliki Poula - 26th September 2020

Children's Rights| Migration Asylum and Trafficking

The high number of unaccompanied migrant minors detained in ‘protective custody’ in police station cells and pre-removal detention centers across Greece has been a matter of vehement legal and political critique on a national, European and international level. According to Greek authorities, ‘protective custody’ is legally embedded in Article 118 of Decree no. 141/1991, which […]

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OxHRH

Right to Education & Emergence of a Digital Divide in Digital India

Rakshitt Bajpai - 23rd September 2020

Children's Rights| Equality and Non-Discrimination| Freedom of Expression| Socio-Economic Rights

The recent statistical report presented by the National Statistical Organization (NSO) indicates the deteriorating standards of availability of internet and computers to students in India, which violates their fundamental rights and creates a digital divide between the privileged and the unprivileged. The situation of India’s education sector is deteriorating rapidly, which is reflected in the […]

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OxHRH

The pandemic, insurgent birth certificates and conflict-affected children

- 17th September 2020

Children's Rights| Conflict and Security

When armed groups control territory, they not infrequently administer public services, and the pandemic is no exception. Non-state armed groups in the Philippines introduced a “shelter in place” order requiring people to self-isolate, in Gaza they established quarantines, and those in Myanmar and eastern Ukraine instituted pandemic travel restrictions. Similarly,  gangs in the favelas of Brazil […]

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