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Neil Siegel - 1st March 2017
What is most concerning about the conduct of Donald Trump during and since the 2016 presidential campaign is not any potential violations of the U.S. Constitution. Most concerning are his disregard of norms that had previously constrained candidates for president and his flouting of constitutional conventions that had previously guided occupants of the White House. In […]
Jayna Kothari and Diksha Sanyal - 28th February 2017
On 6th of February 2017, a law which discriminated against transgender people was amended for the first time in India. This marks a significant victory for the transgender rights movement in India. While the Indian Supreme Court recognized the right to gender identity and autonomy as integral part of the right to life in 2014, […]
Rebecca Mooney - 27th February 2017
In Miller, the Supreme Court ruled by majority that ministers have no prerogative power to invoke article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The European Communities Act 1972 makes EU law an independent and overriding source of domestic law (paras 61–65). Assuming article 50(2) notice is irrevocable, it will remove EU law and […]
Marianna Muravyeva - 23rd February 2017
The Russian bill providing for what has been called the ‘decriminalisation of domestic violence‘ passed a second reading in the Russian State Duma and was approved by the Federation Council on 1 February without much opposition from the senators. It is official now: assault against any family members not resulting in any serious injury is […]
David Ormerod - 22nd February 2017
The recent publication of the Law Commission’s consultation paper The Protection of Official Data has generated a great deal of attention. I welcome the opportunity to provide an overview of some of the matters in the paper and the consultation questions we ask. As with every Law Commission project, the provisional conclusions and questions in […]
Upasana Khatri - 22nd February 2017
When Esther Kiobel—who believes Shell collaborated with Nigerian authorities to commit gross human rights abuses, including the murder of her husband—could not find justice by suing Shell in U.S courts, she decided to sue the Dutch oil giant in the Netherlands. In support of the Dutch action, EarthRights International (ERI) helped Ms. Kiobel and her […]
James Rooney - 20th February 2017
I am now in my final month of working for the Legal Resources Centre and Rhodes University as the Oxford Human Rights Hub Travelling Fellow for 2016. This fellowship has been an incredible experience. After taking courses last year in Oxford which covered South African human rights and non-discrimination jurisprudence, the opportunity to actively engage […]
Dzemal Calakovic - 17th February 2017
In spite of its obligation under Art 6(2) of the Lisbon Treaty to accede to the ECHR, the EU has yet to do so. There are significant challenges in ensuring the EU is held accountable for interferences with human rights. This post will demonstrate the practical challenges the failure to accede presents for the realization […]
Jack Maxwell - 16th February 2017
The Federal Court of Australia recently delivered a milestone judgment for police accountability in Wotton v Queensland (No 5). Wotton is the latest chapter in the ongoing struggle between the state of Queensland, its police force, and the Aboriginal residents of Palm Island, a small community off the state’s east coast. On the morning of […]
Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler - 14th February 2017
On 8th February, the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill passed Third Reading in the House of Commons, by 494 votes to 122. MPs rejected all amendments to the 133-word Bill. This post concerns the rejection, by 332 votes to 290 of an amendment tabled by Harriet Harman, Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights […]
Olivier De Schutter - 13th February 2017
What started in the United States as the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 led the European Union to fundamentally rethink its socio-economic governance tools, calling into question the balance between the economic and the social dimensions of European integration. The sequence of events is well known. The financial crisis rapidly turned into a sovereign debt […]
Pragalbh Bhardwaj - 10th February 2017
In the first week of 2017, a video surfaced, where the police officers in Myanmar are seen nonchalantly beating and kicking helpless Rohingya villagers. This video, which caused a lot of uproar on the social media, highlights one of the many reasons why the Rohingyas have been bestowed with the unfortunate and sorrowful title of […]