The Referendum on the European Union: Remaining Human
The referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU is a decision that will be taken in a troubling context. Although occasionally clothed in the inclusive language of globalism, ‘leave’...
Brexit, Sovereignty and Reality
The referendum campaign has been marked by claims and counter-claims, with each side contesting the ‘facts’ advanced by the other. Voters will form their own views on the respective ‘guilt’...
Brexit: What would be the timetable for leaving?
This blog considers when the UK would cease to be a member of the EU, if the result of the referendum on 23 June 2016 is to leave the European...
Rodrigo Duterte – the Philippines’s Human Rights Wild Card
On 9th of May, Rodrigo Duterte, a long-time mayor of Davao City in the Southern island of Mindanao, was elected the new president of the Philippines, winning nearly 40 percent...
The History of Human Rights Society in Singapore 1965-2015
2015 marked Singapore’s golden jubilee — the nation of 5.5 million people celebrated 50 years of independence, peace and burgeoning economic growth. But tucked in another corner of the city...
Brexit, Rights, and the (Potential) Scrapping of the HRA
The relationship between Brexit (British exit from the European Union) and human (and other) rights depends on what “rights” are under discussion. Although some in the media have incorrectly conflated...
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...
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...