We use cookies to enhance your browsing experience. If you continue to use our website we will take this to mean that you agree to our use of cookies. If you want to find out more, please view our cookie policy. Accept and Hide [x]
In this guest article, Dr Linda Roland Danil argues that a new international agreement is needed to prevent us from sleepwalking into serious trouble.
In 2015, 196 Parties came together and agreed to the Paris Agreement, under which they pledged to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the problem is that the Paris Agreement does not contain quantified, legally-binding obligations for the reduction of emissions. It also has no enforcement mechanism, such as an international tribunal. Instead, countries prepare their own national emissions targets – so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDC’s – and report to each other on how well they are doing to implement their targets.
The Paris Agreement was undoubtedly an achievement in the realm of international climate negotiations, and although the Trump administration has notoriously recently pledged to withdraw from the Agreement, a withdrawal which cannot take effect until late 2020. 196 Parties, at different stages of economic development, and within a conflicting political context, all agreed on the importance of tackling the threat of anthropogenic global warming.
However, the Paris Agreement’s targets are simply not being met, with the national pledges by the signatory Parties having recently been argued to bring about only a third of the reduction of emissions by 2030 that is required. Continue reading →
R (on the application of Cart) (Appellant) v The Upper Tribunal (Respondent); R (on the application of MR (Pakistan)) (FC) (Appellant) v The Upper Tribunal (Immigration & Asylum Chamber) and Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) [2011] UKSC 28, 22/6/2011 – read judgment; press summary here
Unappealable decisions of the Upper Tribunal are still subject to judicial review by the High Court, but only where there is an important point of principle or practice or some other compelling reason for the case to be reviewed. Unrestricted judicial review in this context is unnecessary and a waste of resources.
This judgment deals with two English cases, while a separate judgment deals with the Scottish case Eba v Advocate General for Scotland. The issue common to all three was the extent to which decisions of the Upper Tribunal, established under the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 (the “2007 Act”), are properly subject to judicial review by the Administrative Court in England and Wales and the Court of Session in Scotland.
In all of them the claimant failed in an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal and was refused permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal against that decision both by the First-tier Tribunal and by the Upper Tribunal. In all three the claimant sought a judicial review of the refusal of permission to appeal by the Upper Tribunal. Continue reading →
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular winter wonderland of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found here. You can find previous roundups here. Links compiled by Adam Wagner, post by Celia Rooney.
This week, equality issues dominate the headlines, while elsewhere judicial heavyweights throw their views into the ring on the institutional question of who should have the final say on issues involving human rights.
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, United States Supreme Court – Read judgment
The US Supreme Court has ruled that it does not violate the US Constitution for the government to block speech and other forms of advocacy supporting a foreign organization that has been officially labeled as terrorist, even if the aim is to support such a group’s peaceful or humanitarian actions.
The judgment does not, of course, have any direct effect on the UK. But UK anti-terrorism legislation already provides the police with broad powers to prosecute those who support terrorist groups. The UK Government is likely to be keeping a close eye on the United States in order to guide future policy, in terms of what is and what is not beyond the pale in restriction freedom of expression.
Fish Legal v Information Commissioner and others (Information rights practice and procedure) [2015] UKUT 52 (AAC) Charles J – read judgment
Water and sewage utility companies are “public authorities” for the purposes of the environmental information regulations, and are bound by them accordingly, the Administrative Appeals Chamber of the Upper Tribunal has ruled.
Fish Legal is the legal arm of the Angling Trust. In 2009 it asked United Utilities Water plc and Yorkshire Water Services Ltd for information relating to discharges, clean-up operations, and emergency overflow. Emily Shirley is a private individual. Again, she asked Southern Water Services Ltd for information relating to sewerage capacity for a planning proposal in her village. All three companies denied that they were under a duty to provide the information under Environmental Information Regulations. Both Fish Legal and Mrs Shirley complained to the Commissioner. In 2010 the Commissioner replied, explaining that as the companies were not public authorities for the purposes of EIR, he had no power to adjudicate the complaints. Continue reading →
A new report has argued that the practice of turning back asylum seeker boats at sea is illegal under international law, and does not deter others from making the journey.
Humphreys (FC) (Appellant) v The Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (Respondent) [2012] UKSC 18 On appeal from the Court of Appeal [2010] EWCA Civ 56 – read judgment
It has been accepted for some time that the rule discriminates indirectly against fathers, because experience shows that they are far more likely than mothers to be looking after the child for the smaller number of days in the week. The question before the Supreme Court in this case was whether this discrimination is justified or whether the refusal of CTC to a father who looks after his children for three days a week is incompatible with his Convention rights. The Court ruled that in the light of the policy behind CTC, the reduction of child poverty, the discrimination was justified.
Bournemouth Borough Council v PS and another [2015] EWCOP (11 June 2015) – read judgment
Mostyn J in the Court of Protection was asked to determine whether care arrangements in place for a 28-year-old man (BS) with severe autism and who lacked capacity constituted a deprivation of his liberty. He concluded that the care arrangements in place were in his best interests and did not constitute a deprivation of his liberty under Article 5 of the ECHR. Although he was subject to observation and monitoring in his own home he was not under continuous supervision and he was afforded appreciable privacy; there were no locks on the doors and he was free to leave.
Interestingly, comments made in this case shows that judges, or some of them, do engage with what is being said about them in the blogosphere. Continue reading →
Updated | Recent weeks have seen some interesting developments in the debate over freedom of expression of the press.
Last week saw a decision of Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Sanoma Uitgevers B.V. v. the Netherlands. The case related to the protection of journalistic sources, and has been described as a “victory for press freedom”.
The court held that an order for the compulsory surrender of journalistic material which contained information capable of identifying journalistic sources requires legal procedural safeguards commensurate with the importance of the principle at stake. The Dutch prosecutors in the case, which had ordered the production of a CD-ROM containing potentially incriminating photographs of participants in an illegal race, had therefore breached Article 10 (freedom of expression).
Our attitude to anti-terror policing is very strange indeed. In many ways, it is like a magician’s trick. We (the public) turn up at the show with the full intention of suspending our disbelief so as to be entertained and entranced. The magician pulls the rabbit out of the hat, or makes the Statue of Liberty disappear. We applaud, we are entranced.
But we know , somewhere in the back of our minds, that we are being fooled.
As with our safety from terror. We are happy because major terrorist attacks in the UK or US are thankfully rare. We are told about countless attacks which have been thwarted. We applaud, we are entranced. But we know, somewhere, that there must be a price.
That price is our civil liberties. More accurately, that price is the civil liberties of others, who we don’t know but whose faces occasionally drift through the public conscience. Binyam Mohamad, who was tortured by the CIA, apparently with collusion by our own Security Services. Shaker Aamer, who has been detained in Guantanamo Bay without charge for almost 12 years. And it is no secret that many anti-terrorism laws are draconian and involve a huge potential for abuse.
The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Chamber, has found that five men accused of serious terrorist activities can be extradited from the UK to the US to face trial.
They had argued that their article 3 rights (article 3 prohibits torture, inhuman and degrading treatment) would be violated if they were extradited and convicted. A sixth man’s case has been adjourned pending further submissions from the parties to the proceedings.
Waking up in New York this morning, I find the newspapers are much exercised by the recent decision of the Strasbourg Court to allow the extradition of certain terror suspects to the US, as discussed in Isabel McArdle’s post. The colourful New York Post declares unambiguously that “Thugs face Extradition” (April 11), following its banner headline of yesterday “UK can extradite hook-handed clerk, 4 other terrorists to US”. And just in case any passing reader failed to get the point, the strapline says
Britain can extradite a one-eyed, hook-handed radical Muslim cleric and four other suspects to the United States to face terrorism charges, Europe’s human rights court ruled today.
Giving rather more detail by way of background, today’s edition of The New York Times explains that Britain
has struggled to balance civil liberties and domestic security in the face of entrenched Islamic extremism and repeated terrorist attacks, and has sought to deport some of the dozens of subjects it has detained in scores of possible plots over a decade
According to the NY Times, the director of the national prison project for the American Civil Liberties Union found the ruling “disappointing”, and showed that the Strasbourg Court seemed willing to accept “dubious” assurances from the United States. Continue reading →
The Supreme Court has upheld challenges to the legal regimes for disclosing criminal records in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland, finding them to be incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”).
R (P, G and W) and Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Anor [2019] UKSC 3 – Read Judgment
Inside Stansted Airport, where this incident took place
Thacker & Ors v R. [2021] EWCA Crim 97 (29 January 2021), judgment here
The Court of Appeal held today that a group of activists who broke into Stansted Airport in an act of protest should “not have been prosecuted” for an “extremely serious” terror-related offence under s.1(2)(b) of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990 (“AMSA”).
BACKGROUND
The defendants/appellants in this case were a group of activists who have become known as the “Stansted 15”.
On 27 March 2017, the appellants surrounded a Boeing 767 at Stansted Airport which had been chartered by the Home Office for the purpose of deporting 60 individuals to Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
Equipped with makeshift tripods made from scaffolding pipes and some builder’s foam, the appellants cut through the perimeter fence of the airport and used the tripods a to lock themselves together, surrounding a plane and using the foam to secure the locking mechanisms. By ‘locking on’ to each other, the group prevented the use of the plane.
The UK Association of Fish Producer Organisations v. Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Cranston J, 10 July 2013read judgment
Interesting alignment of parties in this challenge to Defra’s new system of allocating fish quota brought by an industry body (UKAFPO), in practice representing the larger fishing fleet – vessels over 10 metres in length – Defra was supported by Greenpeace (how often does that happen?), and by the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association. And this was because Defra had transferred some fishing quota from the larger to the smaller fishing fleet, namely those under 10 metres in length who fish inshore waters.
The first claim was that UKAFPO had a substantive legitimate expectation in their favour which was unlawfully frustrated by Defra’s change of policy. The second was that there was a breach of Article 1 of Protocol 1 (A1P1) of ECHR, or its EU analogue, Article 17 of the Charter. The third was that UKAFPO was being discriminated against unlawfully – comparable situations must not be treated differently under EU law, and only English fishermen who were members of English fish producers organisations were affected.
This blog is maintained for information purposes only. It is not intended to be a source of legal advice and must not be relied upon as such. Blog posts reflect the views and opinions of their individual authors, not of chambers as a whole.
Our privacy policy can be found on our ‘subscribe’ page or by clicking here.
Today it was announced that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published a special report on the impact of climate change which warns that the world is wildly off track from the target of keeping the rise in global temperature under control.
Welcome back to the UK Human Rights Roundup, your regular winter wonderland of human rights news and views. The full list of links can be found 
This blog is run by
Recent comments