Policy Paper: The Place of Northern Ireland within UK Human Rights Reform

Murray, Colin R.G.; O'Donoghue, Aoife; Warwick, Ben T.C.

Policy Paper: The Place of Northern Ireland within UK Human Rights Reform

Murray, Colin R.G.; O'Donoghue, Aoife; Warwick, Ben T.C.

Authors

Colin R.G. Murray

Aoife O'Donoghue

Ben T.C. Warwick

Abstract

Considerable speculation has surrounded the impact of the Good Friday Agreement’s provisions on human rights upon the Conservative Government’s proposals for repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998. This Policy Paper seeks to demystify this aspect of the debate over the future of the Human Rights Act, examining the terms of the Good Friday Agreement as an international treaty and peace agreement and explaining its interrelationship with both the Human Rights Act and the Devolution Acts. Once some of the hyperbole that surrounds the Agreement and its attendant domestic legislation is removed, it can be seen that the impact of the Agreement is in some regards more extensive than has to date been recognised, whilst in other respects the Agreement has less impact than some of the supporters of the Human Rights Act claim. Reform of arrangements so fundamental to governance in the UK should not be taken lightly, but at present the offhand treatment of the place of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Northern Ireland settlement generates just such a danger.

Citation

Murray, C. R., O'Donoghue, A., & Warwick, B. T. (2015). Policy Paper: The Place of Northern Ireland within UK Human Rights Reform

Acceptance Date	Aug 13, 2015
Publication Date	Aug 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Aug 17, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Nov 6, 2015
Keywords	Human rights, Northern Ireland, Human Rights Act, United Kingdom, Ireland, Good Friday Agreement, European Convention on Human Rights, International law, International human rights.
Related Public URLs	http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2643464