More than two years have elapsed since the devolved power sharing institutions provided for under the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) collapsed in Northern Ireland. Additionally, many of the rights based commitments of the peace settlement, including those originally designed as to act as safeguards on the NI Executive and Assembly, remain unimplemented or have been...
Commitments made during the early stages of the Brexit process to protect the EU rights of Irish citizens in Northern Ireland have not been taken forward. BrexitLawNI has released a detailed briefing paper examining the fate of these commitments. Executive Summary Post-Brexit, Northern Ireland (NI) would be a jurisdiction outside of an EU member state...
Contained within the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol of the draft Withdrawal Agreement is a commitment from the UK to ensure that, in the event of Brexit, there will be “no diminution” of key rights set out in the Good Friday Agreement. This commitment is to be implemented through ‘dedicated mechanisms’, including new oversight and enforcement powers...
The UK is currently undergoing the sixth periodic review of its compliance with the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which it ratified in 1988. All states signed up to the treaty have a duty to prevent and investigate torture, support victims of torture, and ensure perpetrators are...
The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers has published its latest decisions in relation to the scrutiny of the ‘cases concerning the actions of the security forces in Northern Ireland’, otherwise known as the McKerr group of cases. This follows on from a meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies, which took place in Strasburg earlier this...
Working with Conradh na Gaeilge and Ulster University, we have produced a report documenting how commitments made by the UK government in relation to the Irish language have been put into practice by councils in Northern Ireland. Local councils have an important role to play in fulfilling state duties in relation to the Irish language....
Inside this issue: A look at the threats faced by human rights defenders in both Northern Ireland and in Egypt. Conradh na Gaeilge writes about the major shortcomings in special educational needs (SEN) provision for Irish medium schools. We report on a recent session of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which focused on human rights and...
CAJ is pleased with the unanimous decision of the UK Supreme Court to uphold the appeal taken by Geraldine Finucane in relation to the murder of her husband Pat Finucane. Pat Finucane was murdered on 12 February 1989 and although David Cameron admitted in 2012 that there were ‘shocking levels of collusion’ in this murder...
The Committee of Ministers is the decision-making body of Europe’s leading human rights organisation, the Council of Europe. Between 12 to 14 March, the 1340th (Human Rights) meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies will take place. This session will look at the execution of judgements made by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in a...
Since the EU referendum, the UK government has consistently emphasised that the ‘associated rights’ of the Common Travel Area (CTA) between the UK and Ireland will provide British and Irish citizens with reciprocal rights across the two jurisdictions after Brexit. However, independent legal analysis has highlighted that, in several areas, rights for Irish citizens in...
