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The JCHR Enquiry on Derogation from the ECHR: My Written Evidence

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has now published all of the written evidence it received about the proposed derogations by the UK from the ECHR in situations of conflict abroad. My submission is available here, and the executive summary is as follows: Continue reading “The JCHR Enquiry on Derogation from the ECHR: My Written Evidence”

Politicians left with nowhere to hide on abortion

I have an opinion editorial in yesterday’s online edition of the Irish Times on the next steps following the Citizens Assembly recommendations on abortion law reform in ireland. The full piece is available here, and here is a taste of its main argument:

It has already been reported that some politicians consider the committee’s purpose to be to water down the assembly’s proposals. This is a curious way, indeed, to think about the role of a committee established to consider the views of an assembly the Oireachtas itself established, and it is hard to see it as anything other than contemptuous of the process and the assembly members.

So what is the committee for?

Of course, it is not slavishly bound by the recommendations of the assembly, but surely its purpose is to take the broad recommendations and consider how they might be given practical effect.

…

The assembly clearly called for the State to fundamentally rethink its legal approach to abortion. Surely, the role of the committee, rather than frustrate that demand, is to inform the Oireachtas of the options for doing so.

Otherwise, one might reasonably ask whether the Citizens Assembly was simply a stalling tactic all along.

Triggering Article 50: The task that lies ahead

This week I wrote the Birmingham Brief, a briefly insight from University of Birmingham academics into a matter relevant to current politics and policy-making. All Birmingham Briefs can be accessed here.

On March 29, the Prime Minister will trigger Article 50, starting the official Brexit process. As a result, unless all parties agree to an extension, the UK will officially leave the European Union on 29 March 2019.

The task ahead in these two years is colossal. It is clearly in the interests of both the UK and the European Union (and its 27 remaining member states) that Brexit is orderly. In other words, that to the extent possible, arrangements are made to ensure that agreement is reached in relation to major areas, such as trade, data sharing and data protection, and travel. The UK’s relationship with some particular member states, such as Ireland, will also require special attention, not least to try to find a way to ensure that the Common Travel Areathat is so important to the two countries’ continuing relationships of politics, history, trade, friendship and kin can be sustained. All of the remaining EU27 will have an interest in making sure that their citizens, who reside in the UK, are protected and continue to enjoy security in their lives in this country, and of course the same is true for UK citizens living in other EU states. Continue reading “Triggering Article 50: The task that lies ahead”

Can infringement proceedings ‘solve’ the ECtHR’s non-execution problem?

The final version of new article, written with Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, is now published in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly. The article, entitled (rather pessimistically) “Mission Impossible? Addressing Non-Execution through Infringement Proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights”, picks up on a recent proposal that Article 46(4) of the ECHR would be used to address non-execution. This allows the Committee of Ministers to refer a case back to the Court in the case of non-execution by the contracting state. In short, we argue that such an approach is misguided on three grounds: practicality, futility, and backlash. Fundamentally, we say, the proposed solution does not ‘fit’ the problem of non-execution properly understood. Continue reading “Can infringement proceedings ‘solve’ the ECtHR’s non-execution problem?”