Category: Devolution

Strengthening the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill

Children's Rights, Devolution, Human rights, Incorporation, Scotland, Uncategorized

This post is 2 of 2 by Dr Kasey McCall-Smith examining the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill. This post highlights how stronger interpretive tools could strengthen the Bill and deliver a brighter future for children in Scotland. Dr McCall-Smith serves on the Expert Advisory Group on UNCRC Incorporation convened by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and the Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights (Together). @KMSonIntlLaw

 

In a previous post I presented some of the key triumphs of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill (Incorporation Bill) that is currently before Scottish Parliament. This post suggests some ways in which the current Bill could be strengthened in terms of the interpretation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) rights incorporated through Schedule 1 of the Bill. Expanding the interpretive scope further would better support the progressive realisation of children’s rights, shore up protection for children with intersectional vulnerabilities and ensure that Scotland becomes ‘the best place in the world to grow up’.

Match the Interpretive Tools Available to the Courts With Those of Scottish Ministers

One of the clearest ways in which the Scottish Parliament could strengthen the Incorporation Bill is to further enhance the interpretive tools available to courts when determining a question in connection with the UNCRC. At present, section 4 of the Bill outlines the ‘things’ that courts or tribunals ‘may take into account’ as: (1) the preamble of the UNCRC; (2) the articles directly incorporated through Schedule 1 of the Bill; and (3) provisions of the UNCRC and the articles that are not included in Schedule 1. The glaring gap is the failure to include the interpretive opinions or instruments of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) that oversees the international implementation of the Convention. These opinions/instruments include Concluding Observations on UK periodic reports, Final Views (on individual communications), General Comments and reports on general discussion days – in which the UK and Scotland have actively participated in both government and civil society capacities. Including these as interpretive reference tools is important in order to keep on top of international developments in children’s rights, progressively realise UNCRC rights and to ensure that interpretations in Scotland track the specific advice of the CRC in terms of its engagement with the collective UK and broader international community. Notably, if the UK were to ratify the Third Optional Protocol on an Individual Communications Procedure (addressed in s5), that process would generate further instructive opinions on the implementation of children’s rights in the UK that should, arguably, be a strong push factor for the UK.

The omission in section 4 of the Bill is intentional considering that Part 3 of the Bill brings these instruments in for the purposes of Scottish Ministers making, amending and remaking a Children’s Rights Scheme that will document the arrangements put in place to fulfil their duties outlined in the Bill. Section 12(2)(a) details that

(2)  In preparing the proposal, the Scottish Ministers—

 

(a) must have regard to

 

(i)  any report of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child under paragraph 5 of article 44 of the Convention that the Scottish Ministers consider to be relevant, and

 

(ii)  any other reports, suggestions, general recommendations or other documents issued by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child relating to the implementation of the Convention, the first optional protocol or the second optional protocol by the United Kingdom that the Scottish Ministers consider to be relevant, …

Though UNCRC Article 44(5) only make specific reference to the periodic reporting process, further practices, such as issuing general comments and holding days of discussion, has become a regular practice of the CRC and a key way in which the Committee can assess the most current information on children’s rights implementation. Section 12(2)(a)(ii) appears to accommodate the variable modalities of interpretation generated by the Committee but the granular reference to suggestions or general recommendations under UNCRC Article 45(d) implies that the same tools of interpretation are not available to the courts. The variable reference to the use of treaty body jurisprudence as an interpretive tool is further complicated in that General Comments are specified as a tool when reviewing a Children’s Rights Scheme in section 13(2) of the Bill but not expressly included when developing the Scheme under section 12.

While not viewed as binding by most States, the products of the treaty bodies are extremely important resources for interpreting children’s rights and UK courts have increasingly made reference to them when determining legal questions relating to children. Furthermore, general international law recognizes the role of the treaty bodies as the ultimate interpreters of their respective treaties. Clarifying that the treaty body jurisprudence should be included in the judiciary’s interpretation toolkit would help encourage culture change and reinforce the value of international human rights interpretation. Even if under Scots law the judiciary has the power to take anything it deems appropriate into account, if we are going to entrench the UNCRC in Scotland, there must be a tether to the jurisprudence of the CRC Committee.

Maximizing the Availability of Interpretive Tools

To be even more effective, the interpretive tools should be expanded to include relevant resources from other treaty bodies, such as the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that oversees the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In cases where interference with children’s rights involves the intersection of various identities, cross-referencing across the treaties is the best way to ensure the highest attention to the individual’s needs. The recent experience of the right to education during the Covid-19 pandemic illustrates the value in maximizing the sources available in the interpretive toolkit.

During the UK lockdown one of the most common complaints was the breach of the right to education for children. Children with disabilities or socio-economic vulnerabilities or both were particularly impacted by the closure of the schools. While the Committee on the Rights of the Child has issued guidance on implementing the right to education (now rather dated), both the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Committee on Racial Discrimination have provided far greater guidance in how to address the right to education for children that often suffer inequality due to their intersectional identities. To construct a minimum core to the right to education and offer guidance on how to deliver that under normal and extraordinary circumstances, such as those created during the pandemic, it is incumbent on decision makers to canvass the wide range of materials that are available. This does not mean that they must follow the treaty body interpretations to the letter. However, opening up the possible tools to which decision-makers may avail themselves is a clear step forward toward a holistic, human rights based approach to interpreting children’s rights.

Make it Stronger to Make Rights Real

The consistent political rhetoric about adopting the ‘gold standard’ children’s rights through incorporation of the UNCRC is not just about putting the static articles of a 30 year-old treaty into Scots law. It is about recognizing the dynamism and evolution in children’s rights and their capacity to exercise them in the pursuit of creating a stronger, more inclusive society. Effective implementation will require the synthesis of a broad range of law and policy that responds to lived experience. The interpretive tools offered by the UN human rights treaty bodies provides an easy starting point for decision-makers. Explicit reference to these tools across all interpreters of children’s rights under the proposed UNCRC Incorporation Bill would go a long way in ensuring that we make children’s rights real in Scotland.

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Brexit, Northern Ireland and UK-Irish Relations

Citizenship and Belonging, Constitutional Change, Devolution, EU, Europe, Immigration, Law and Legal, Political Settlements, UK

CB profileThis post by GJA Director, Professor Christine Bell, was first published on the Centre on Constitutional Change blog on 26 March 2016, co-published with European Futures.

Amid pronouncements about the UK as an island nation, scant media or political attention has been paid to its only land border with the EU – between Northern Ireland and the Republic. However, says Professor Christine Bell in this extended analysis, the impact of Brexit on the institutions built up as part of the Peace Process would be considerable.

The EU referendum and the possibility of ‘Brexit’ raise distinct questions for Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the UK as part of the peace process. In the referendum debate, more attention needs to be given in the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland, the one part of the UK which has a land border with another EU country.

Political Divisions and the EU Referendum Campaign

The first key question as regards the EU referendum’s impact in Northern Ireland relates to the distinctiveness of its political settlement: how will the Brexit campaign affect political relationships – ever fragile – within Northern Ireland?

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Human Rights and Making Change: Looking Backwards and Moving Forwards from the Northern Ireland High Court Decision on Abortion

Abortion, Devolution, Gender, Health, Human rights, Human Rights Act, Law and Legal, UK, Women

This post first appeared on the Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights blog from the Faculty of Law at University College Cork.

Dr Catherine O’Rourke is Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and International Law at Ulster University Transitional Justice Institute. She is currently also co-coordinator of the Gender Stream of the DFID-funded Political Settlements Research Programme, where she is investigating how international law norms for gender equality influence domestic power-brokering.

In the aftermath of last week’s High Court judgment declaring Northern Ireland’s prohibition of abortion to be incompatible with UK human rights legislation in specific instances, there has been much valuable consideration of the judgment’s legal and political implications, for this jurisdiction and others.  In this contribution, I reflect on what the litigation and judgment say about human rights advocacy in Northern Ireland.

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Northern Irish Abortion Law Incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights

Abortion, Devolution, Gender, Health, Human rights, Human Rights Act, Law and Legal, UK, Women

This post first appeared on the European Futures Blog.

In this extended article, Jane Rooney analyses the recent Northern Ireland High Court decision that current abortion law is not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. She suggests that the judgement could have gone further in testing the compatibility of the legislation with the ECHR, and that possible appeals are unlikely to take the politics of Northern Ireland as closely into account.

On 30 November 2015 in the case of The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission’s Application [2015] NIQB 96, the High Court of Northern Ireland found that Northern Irish law regulating abortion was incompatible with Article 8 (right to private life) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This was an historical judgement made possible through the conjoined efforts of many, including women directly affected by the legislation, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International.

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The Fast-Eroding Glue of Union: Devolution and the Human Rights Act

Citizenship and Belonging, Constitutional Change, Devolution, Human rights, Human Rights Act

Director of the Global Justice Academy and Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Edinburgh, Christine Bell, first blogged on the difficulties that repeal of the Human Rights Act would pose for the UK’s devolved settlements in May 2015. This blog builds on those initial arguments, first appearing on . It has since been picked up by the UK media.

The Conservative government’s proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and possible withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Council of Europe, would have far-reaching implications for the UK’s devolved administrations and relations with the Republic of Ireland. These run deep into the constitutional marrow of the nations involved; so deep that it is difficult to see how repeal of the Act could take place without their consent. The government’s difficulties in relation to, especially, Scotland and Northern Ireland are significant but different and worth reviewing separately.

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Human Rights Act Repeal and Devolution: Quick Points and Further Resources on Scotland and Northern Ireland

Constitutional Change, Devolution, Human rights, Human Rights Act, UK

Can the UK’s Human Rights Act be repealed? What would the process need? Is it even possible? What are the legal implications?

Christine Bell, Professor of Constitutional Law at Edinburgh Law School, Assistant Principal Global Justice and Director of the Global Justice Academy, offers this review of the current debate on repealing the Human Rights Act, and points readers to other available resources.

In the past few days repeal of the Human Rights Act, and in particular its devolution implications have attracted a lot of attention.  Today, a new report is launched from a legal expert seminar in April 2015, on the legal implications of repeal of the human rights act (see below).  The report provides the full chapter and verse, but here are a few quick points on the devolution implications, with further more detailed and reasoned resources below.

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