Venezuela’s Battle for the Rule of Law
Once one of Latin America’s richest countries and with the second-largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela is now on the brink of an economic and political meltdown. The International...
Constitutions and Human Rights
Report: ‘Constitutional Change in New Zealand (and a Bill of Rights for Britain?)’
On 17 February 2016, Oxford’s Programme for the Foundations of Law and Constitutional Government hosted a talk by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Minister of Justice...
The Dawn of Devolved Government in Kenya
In a landmark paper on Kenyan politics, Daniel Branch and Nic Cheeseman developed the term “bureaucratic-executive state” to describe how power came to be centralised in Kenya between the years...
A Backwards Step for Human Rights Law in Victoria: Bare v Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission
In July 2015, the Victoria Court of Appeal, Australia, handed down a landmark decision in Bare v Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (‘Bare’). The Court held that Victoria’s Charter of Human...
A judicial ‘Plan B’? Dinah Rose QC on the Common Law in a post-UK Human Rights Act world
In recent weeks the Blog has covered the latest events at which proponents of the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998 (including Dominic Grieve QC MP and Sir Keir Starmer QC)...
Sir Keir Starmer’s Blackstone Lecture: “Human Rights: Can Britain go it Alone? And Should We?”
On 21st November, the annual Blackstone Lecture at Pembroke College was delivered by Sir Keir Starmer, the well known human rights barrister and former Director of Public Prosecutions turned Labour...
Dominic Grieve on the Human Rights Act: St Hugh’s College, Oxford—13 November 2015
The Human Rights Act (HRA) is one of the most significant pieces of constitutional reform in Britain. Certain sections of the Conservative Party, though, enthusiastically encouraged by parts of the...
The Chinese Human Rights Roundup
Human rights lawyers are internationally perceived as crusaders, advocating for basic human rights for all mankind. But what happens when the lawyers themselves, not the clients, are the ones subject...
Rule of Law in Hong Kong’s Brave New World
Hong Kong must have thought to itself, “O brave new world, that has such people in it”, as it listened to a speech by the Director of Beijing’s Liaison Office...
The Role of Parliaments in the Protection and Realisation of the Rule of Law and Human Rights
What is the role of parliaments in the protection and realisation of the rule of law and human rights? Should there be a set of internationally agreed principles and guidelines...
Queensland Parliament Lights Up the Night for Human Rights
Monday 14th September 2015 saw an exciting development on the legislative human rights front in Australia, as a coalition of NGOs, community groups and community members hosted a public launch...
A Human Rights Perspective of the Supreme Court Verdict on the Basic Structure Doctrine
In a recent verdict by the Supreme Court of Pakistan (“SCP”), the constitutionality of, inter alia, the 21st amendment—whereby the Federal Government can transfer the trial of certain terrorism-related offences...
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