Tag: Human rights

How Covid-19 is altering our conception of citizenship

How Covid-19 is altering our conception of citizenship

The Covid-19 pandemic is a public health emergency, but it also has the potential to impact on many other elements of European societies beyond health services. Jelena Dzankic and Lorenzo Piccoli write on the effect the outbreak is having on the uses and meanings of citizenship.

Book Review | Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration by Javier Hidalgo

Book Review | Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration by Javier Hidalgo

In Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of Immigration, Javier S. Hidalgo makes a clear and engaging case for open borders, arguing that immigration control is unjustly coercive and outlining the responsibilities we have as individuals when it comes to responding to this injustice. This book is essential reading for scholars studying migration and policymakers policing it, writes Mollie Gerver, as well as for all citizens deciding what to do in a world where borders remain closed and movement remains curtailed.

How populist radical right parties have eroded the EU’s human rights agenda in the Mediterranean

How populist radical right parties have eroded the EU’s human rights agenda in the Mediterranean

It is often assumed that populist radical right parties will support disengaging from the European Union by default. Adrià Rivera Escartin writes that although many of these parties do support disengaging from the EU, there is the potential for a different approach to be adopted in future which might be termed ‘informal and illiberal Europeanisation’. Italy’s capacity to shape EU relations with Tunisia and Hungary’s efforts to influence the EU’s relations with Egypt offer two recent examples of how this trend might materialise.

General election 2019: what are the prospects for UK human rights, and the Human Rights Act after the election?

General election 2019: what are the prospects for UK human rights, and the Human Rights Act after the election?

In past elections, attitudes to the Human Rights Act have marked a clear dividing line between parties, with key figures within the Conservative Party often supporting repeal of it and withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. This has become intertwined with arguments around Brexit. Frederick Cowell assesses potential points of contention with human rights law in this election, including over army prosecutions, and argues that disputes over the HRA are likely to be pushed down the road, only to resurface in 2020, during any transition period after leaving the EU, and as prospects of a No Deal Brexit resurface.

Book Review | The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power

Book Review | The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power

In The Education of an Idealist, Samantha Power offers a political memoir that traces her life story from her beginnings as an Irish immigrant to the US through to her work as a war correspondent in the Balkans and her ascent to the White House, where she served as President Barack Obama’s human rights adviser and became the youngest ever US Ambassador to the United Nations. This gripping, candid and witty book tells the story of Power’s efforts to bring about a different kind of US foreign policy and reveals the tensions that arose between acting on the dictates of governance and responding to human suffering, writes Chris Harmer.

The use of EU Citizens as bargaining chips may be in violation of European human rights law

The use of EU Citizens as bargaining chips may be in violation of European human rights law

Leaving the EU will not exempt the UK from its responsibilities under the European Convention on Human Rights. Virginia Mantouvalou illustrates how the refusal of Theresa May and others to guarantee the rights of EU citizens following the vote in favour of Brexit could be in violation of European law, and writes that although the new Prime […]

The Brexit paradox: Direct democracy is a flawed route to reviving sovereignty

The Brexit paradox: Direct democracy is a flawed route to reviving sovereignty

Rhetoric around parliamentary sovereignty and “taking back control” became a recurring theme in the Leave Campaign. But Panagiotis Doudonis argues that there is a contradiction in using a referendum – a coercive, direct democracy device – to reclaim parliamentary sovereignty, which has its foundations in representative democracy. Similar PostsLong Read: Brexit, the Referendum and the […]

Do international human rights mechanisms help women?

Do international human rights mechanisms help women?

Women’s rights are championed at the level of international institutions such as the United Nations – yet human rights treaties and mechanisms still struggle to affect change in certain contexts. Jennifer Thomson asks why this is in her recent Politics article. Similar PostsBook Review | Contentious Rituals: Parading the Nation in Northern Ireland by Jonathan S. […]

Laws born out of trauma: in defence of the EU’s conception of human rights

Laws born out of trauma: in defence of the EU’s conception of human rights

With both the EU and human rights demonised in public discourse, Catherine Dupré sets out to redeem the concepts from their critics. She argues that the EU’s conception of human rights, as codified in its Charter of Fundamental Rights, defines a set of absolute rights borne out of wartime trauma and transcending the limitations of a conception of […]

Theresa May’s case for withdrawal from the ECHR: Politically astute, legally dubious, constitutionally naïve

Theresa May’s case for withdrawal from the ECHR: Politically astute, legally dubious, constitutionally naïve

Theresa May belongs to the Remain camp, yet favours leaving the ECHR. Mark Elliott analyses the arguments she has put forward to justify this position, and writes that although May’s position might be politically savvy, it turns upon legally specious distinctions between the EU and ECHR legal regimes, and is ultimately undermined by its constitutional naivety. […]