Visas for Surrogates: Acknowledging Familial Bonds between Surrogates, Intended Parents, and Children
Image Description: Surrogate parents attending the birth of the child in the hospital with the gestational mother. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought into focus the vulnerabilities of surrogates gestating...
Leigh v Commissioner for the Police of the Metropolis: Fundamental Rights during COVID
Image description: Large collection of lit candles amidst darkness In Leigh v Commissioner for the Police of the Metropolis [2022] EWHC 527, the High Court ruled that the Metropolitan Police...
Trafficked Persons on Trial in the United Kingdom: New Court of Appeal Guidance
Image description: a building with the inscription “Criminal Courts Building”. Section 45 of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (MSA) established a statutory basis for the principle of non-punishment of trafficked...
Y v. Poland: Trans Rights and Strasbourg’s Search for a Proper Discrimination Theory
Image Description: Seven small Trans rights flags erected on grass. There are flowers growing in the background. On 17.2.22 the ECtHR passed judgment in another trans-rights case, finding that the...
Russian Aggression in Ukraine and The Right to Life at War
Image description: Many soldiers with guns, and a Ukrainian flag in the background. In times of war, especially distant war, human lives start being counted by the hundreds. People...
The Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill: Voluntary Euthanasia, Self-Administration and Disability Discrimination
Image description: Interior of Scottish Parliament debating chamber Scotland will become the first of the UK’s four nations to legalise assisted dying if the Scottish Parliament passes a Bill currently...
Balancing Rights: The Future of Remote Courts in Public Family Law
Image Description: Socially distanced judges in courtroom At the start of 2022, as we approach nearly two years of family courts operating under the twin pressures of decades of under-funding...
Sanchez and ZB v France: How Many More Restrictions to Freedom of Expression Should Strasbourg Accept?
Image Description: On a brick wall, the phrase ‘Free Speech’ is being written by a person, using spray paint. Below this phrase, the words ‘*Conditions apply’ has been written. On...
Adbi Ibrahim v Norway: What It Takes to Make People Feel Integrated “Here in Europe” Without Necessarily “Becoming Like Them Norwegian Christians”
Image Description: A Norwegian flag flying in the sky. On December 10th, the ECtHR’s GC (Grand Chamber) issued its last 2021 judgment in Adbi Ibrahim, a truly sad case. The...
The Use of Restraints against Prisoners Receiving Medical Treatment: The PPO Report into the Death of Peter Sutcliffe
Image description: several handcuffs hanging from a rod in prison. The report by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (‘PPO’) into the death of Peter Coonan, formerly known as Peter Sutcliffe,...
UK High Court Grants Discretionary Leave to Remain for Victims of Trafficking
Image description: Several persons approaching the coastline on a small boat. On 12 October 2021, in KTT, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department...
The Polish Challenge to the ECtHR’s Authority: Can the CoE Human-Rights System Respond Convincingly to It?
That the 24.11.21 judgment of the Polish Constitutional Court (CC) represents a serious challenge to the ECtHR’s authority does not seem to be open to question. The CoE SG has...