An Unsecured Commitment: Security and Justice in the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Insecurity and injustice are a daily reality for large numbers of people around the world. Although gathering data on areas torn by public fear, human tragedy and below average living...
Valuing the Work of Community Lawyers’ to Resolve Systemic Problems – The Productivity Commission Report on Access to Justice Arrangements in Australia
In the past decade or more in Australia, creeping managerialism and efforts to reduce funding of services under the guise of ‘fiscal belt tightening’ and efficiency have threatened and sometimes...
Impunity for Police Violence: nine years since Jhonny Silva-Aranguren's death
Colombia´s critical human rights situation is a result of both political violence, and organized and petty crime. Whilst ongoing peace talks with guerrilla forces bring the country closer to the...
The Uncertain Status of Child Rights in the UK
This November marks the 25th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). An atypical fusion of both civil and political, and economic, social and cultural rights,...
The Unified Screening Mechanism: Hong Kong to Assess Refugee Claims Alongside Torture Claims
The UNHCR previously had the role of assessing and determining refugee claims (“persecution claims”) in Hong Kong in accordance with Art. 33 of the Convention Relating to the Status of...
National Pro Bono Week – Litigating for Justice and Empowerment at the LRC
This is the fifth post in our series celebrating National Pro Bono Week. OxHRH’s sister organisation, Oxford Pro Bono Publico (OPBP) provides annual grants to students undertaking unpaid or poorly...
Cutting Corners: The Procedural Illegality of Legal Aid Cuts
In R (London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association & another) v Lord Chancellor [2014] EWHC 3020 (Admin), the High Court ruled that the consultation process adopted by the Government in reducing...
The Impact of Fees in the Tribunal
Fees for bringing claims in the employment tribunal were introduced in August 2013. Since then, the Ministry of Justice’s statistics have revealed a huge decline in the number of claims....
Clinical Legal Education as an Access to Justice Innovation
Imagine you got grant funding to develop an access to justice research agenda. Your grant application proposes the appointment of a team of law graduates to conduct research within a...
Presumptive Costs Orders: A Threat to Public Interest Interventions (Part II)
In a previous post, I reviewed the terms of the Government’s proposed new costs rule for interventions (cl 67, Criminal Justice and Courts Bill), and queried the Government’s characterization of...
Presumptive Costs Orders: A Threat to Public Interest Interventions (Part I)
The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill received its second reading in the House of Lords on 30 June 2014 and has now been referred to committee stage. Part 4 of...
The Irrelevance of Residence: The Unlawful ‘Residence Test’ for Legal Aid
In R (Public Law Project) v Secretary of State for Justice, the Administrative Court held that the Government’s proposed residence test for legal aid was ultra vires and discriminatory. The...