Blog

Select a blog category

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 […]

Read full article »

Student protests in South Africa: police brutality claims the life of a bystander

Benjamin Hall - 24th March 2021

Criminal Justice and Fair trial| Right against Torture| Right to Freedom of Assembly| Right to Life

After the ruthless policing of student protests in Johannesburg claimed the life of an innocent bystander, South Africa’s troubled entanglement with police brutality is once again called into question. In the wake of failure to fulfil human rights obligations and neglect of core constitutional values, the need for police reforms and new training becomes more […]

Read full article »

How the Prison System is Failing Women and Why it is a Human Rights Issue

Sydney Lang - 23rd March 2021

Criminal Justice and Fair trial| Gender

While women make up the minority in global prison populations, they are the fastest growing prison population. With this, comes a need to evaluate human rights violations within justice systems and detention centers. Many women are imprisoned due to the gender discrimination prevalent in the society. This discrimination often appears in the form of (patriarchal) […]

Read full article »

The Independent Review of Administrative Law: The Government Response and Consultation Exercise

Paul Craig - 22nd March 2021

In two earlier blogs I considered the IRAL Panel’s Report and a central feature of the government response, which was premised on the assumption that courts were exceeding the bounds of their authority when reviewing decisions of public bodies. This constituted the introduction to a longer government document, ‘The Government Response to the Independent Review […]

Read full article »

The Independent Review of Administrative Law-The Government Response

Paul Craig - 20th March 2021

The government’s response to the Panel’s report was brief, Judicial Review: Proposals for Reform – Ministry of Justice – Citizen Space. It welcomed the Report, and made clear that it intended to pursue reforms proposed by the Panel concerning the Cart judgment and suspended quashing orders. It also indicated that it would be pressing forward […]

Read full article »

The Independent Review of Administrative Law-The Panel Report

Paul Craig - 20th March 2021

The Report of the Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL) was made public on 16 March. It stretches to 195 pages in total, although one third of this comprises annexes and the like. This blog considers the Report of the Panel; an accompanying blog addresses the government response. The IRAL Panel is refreshingly open and […]

Read full article »

Algorithms and Education: A New Frontier of Discrimination?

Santosh Carvalho - 15th March 2021

Disability| Right to Education| Right to Equality and Non-Discrimination

In this brief post, I want to demonstrate how ostensibly neutral and efficient algorithms can cause discrimination in education. Last year, the national advanced level qualifications (‘A-levels’) exams in the UK that lead to places in university, further study, training, or work had to be cancelled because of school closures owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

Read full article »

Saudi Arabia must protect financial rights of migrant workers

Ramy Abdu - 15th March 2021

Business & Human Rights| Immigration and Asylum| Labour Rights

On 14 March, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, long known for the oppressive treatment of foreign workers, enacted a law awarding more rights to foreign workers. However, more than half of those labourers, or five categories, remain subject to the country’s deeply exploitative kafala (sponsorship) system. That must change. While those covered by the legal […]

Read full article »

Supreme Court of Pakistan prohibits execution of condemned prisoners with mental illnesses: A promising start towards reforming Pakistan’s death penalty problem?

- 15th March 2021

Death Penalty

On 10 February, 2021, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) delivered its landmark judgement in Safia Bano v. Home Department (along with 2 consolidated cases). This judgment held that if a condemned prisoner, due to mental illness, is found to be unable to comprehend the rationale and reason behind their punishment, […]

Read full article »

The Unconstitutionality of Myanmar’s State of Emergency

- 14th March 2021

Constitutions Institutions and Nation Building

On 1st of February 2021, the State Peace and Development Council (‘SPDC’) imposed a year-long state of emergency. The Burmese military invoked Article 417 of the Constitution of Burma, which states that the President may declare a nation-wide emergency if there is sufficient reason for the Union’s disintegration or the loss of sovereignty by insurgency, […]

Read full article »

OxHRH

Why Dinah Rose QC Had an Obligation to Give up the Homophobic Cayman Islands Brief: A Response to Lord Hendy QC

Gilbert Marcus SC - 14th March 2021

Access to Justice

Justice Edwin Cameron’s criticism of Dinah Rose QC for persisting in holding a brief in the Privy Council to defend the Cayman Government’s homophobic prohibition on same-sex marriage has little to do with the cab rank rule, contrary to what Lord Hendy seems to think. Lord Hendy cites the Bar Standard Board’s Code of Conduct […]

Read full article »