The Young Lawyers’ Committee of the Human Rights Lawyers Association is calling for submission for the 2016 Edition of The Young Human Rights Lawyer Journal. The first edition of the The Young Human Rights Lawyer was published in October 2015 and is available here.The Journal contains a foreword by Lord Pannick QC on the possible upcoming British Bill of Rights. Lord Pannick argues that the development of a British Bill of Rights may ‘promote greater enthusiasm for human rights law in this country’. However, he goes on to state that although he is not opposed to a Bill of Rights in principle, there are a number of unanswered questions in regards how a Bill of Rights would function and he worries that the United Kingdom might resile from its international law obligation to implement European Court of Human Rights’ judgments.

The articles in the Journal cover a wide range of areas involving human rights including European Union Law, regional human rights protection, international criminal law, as well as submissions concerning the domestic protection of human rights. The purpose of this Journal is to provide a platform for young lawyers to publish their work on human rights topics as well as to provide a means by which current human rights issues can be explored.

Submissions are now open for this year’s Journal from students (at whatever stage of their studies), pupil barristers and trainee solicitors. Submissions can take the form of a scholarly article on a human rights topic (of around 1,500 words) or a shorter opinion piece or case commentary (750 – 1,000 words). The deadline for submissions is 4pm on Sunday 1 May 2016. For further details in regards to the submission of articles please see here.

Michael Polak, Chair, Young Lawyer’s Committee of the Human Rights Lawyers Association