Human Rights - Time to Act

The Conservative manifesto pledged to scrap the human rights act within the first 100 days.

Even in the last parliament there was the attempt to construct the infamous "Bill of Rights" which was struck unceremoniously into the long grass. With the conservative parliamentary majority there still maybe legal and political difficulties in the actual repeal of the act.

A number of groups have swung into action to campaign on this issue. Liberty, one would have thought would be a front runner in this but simply have this in the campaigning section of their website. The British Institute of Human Rights have been active on social media and have been promoting this blog post, but there is little in terms of a real plan. In some ways that understandable when so little details have been published on the actual proposals on abolition. 

Swiftly post-election Adam Wagner published this on the exciting new website rightsinfo.org. He advocates engaging with the process of reform and the construction of any bill of rights. However this is hard to do with little clear proposals. I really like Amnesty's "Do the human right thing" campaign but again it seems to be little but collecting email addresses and phone numbers. So far the most constructive thing I have seen is this petition launched yesterday and already gaining over 80,000 signatures.

Bringing Human Rights home to Northampton

Today, Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council were supporting partners to the British Institute of Human Rights countrywide tour with an event hosted in the Cheyne Walk Club in centre of Northampton.

An audience of over forty people gave up a whole day of their time to debate, discuss and engage with the concept of human rights in twenty first century britain and aboard. The Human Rights tour has been taking place since 2011 and for the first time it had arrived in Northamptonshire.

With a wide range of information about human rights including detailed description of the background to the establishment of the human rights and the framework of rights, the sessions covered case law, the balance of absolute and non absolute rights. There was a wealth of information delivered in an approach that could only be described as extremely user friendly.

It was really positive talking with others in the break at the event at a time where human rights has been hitting the headlines with both the media and the breadth of the political classes having their say.


The trouble is that we are all too comfortable to accept human rights as an idea that should be upheld in a far off foreign land. For right here and right now, human rights doesn't have a poster boy or poster girl that we can all relate to as it is about all humans many of which we will never really share a similar experience with. Much of the time arguments of social justice promote the concept of "that could be you ... so support their cause". All too often human rights battlefields require supporters to support causes that they will never experience, so the support has to be there with the argument that "this is the right thing to do"and the human rights cause, particular in these times desparately need you and many others to do the right thing.