What practical impact does the incorporation of international human rights standards into domestic law have? This collection of essays explores human rights in domestic legal systems. The enactment of the Human Rights Act in 1998, ushering the European Convention on Human Rights fully into UK law, represented a landmark in the UK constitutional order. Other European states similarly have elevated the status of human rights in their domestic legal systems. However, while much has been written about doctrinal legal developments, little is yet known about the empirical effects of bringing rights home. This collection of essays, written by a range of distinguished socio-legal scholars, seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge. The essays, presenting new empirical research, begin their enquiry where many studies in human rights finish. The contributors do not stop at the recognition of international law and norms by states, but penetrate the internal workings of domestic legal systems to see the law in action — as it is developed, contested, manipulated, or even ignored by actors such as judges, lawyers, civil servants, interest groups, and others. This distinctly socio-legal approach offers a unique contribution to the literature on human rights, exploring human rights law-in-action in developed countries. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of looking beyond grand generalities and the hopes of international human rights law in order to understand the impact of the global human rights movement.
Author(s): Simon Halliday, Patrick D. Schmidt
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 278
Preliminaries......Page 1
Preface......Page 7
Acknowledgements......Page 9
Contents......Page 11
List of Contributors......Page 13
1 Introduction Socio Legal Perspectives on Human Rights in the National Context......Page 15
2 Implementing Human Rights......Page 37
3 France the UK and the Boomerang of the Internationalisation of Human Rights 1945 2000......Page 71
4 We’ve Had To Raise Our Game Liberty’s Litigation Strategy Under The Human Rights Act 1998......Page 101
5 Implementing the Human Rights Act into the Courts in England and Wales Culture Shift or Damp Squib......Page 125
6 The Effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions......Page 151
7 When Do Rights Matter A Case Study of the Right to Equal Treatment in Sweden......Page 179
8 Human Rights and French Criminal Justice Opening the Door to Pre Trial Defence Rights......Page 199
9 The Millennium Blip The Human Rights Act 1998 and Local Government......Page 223
10 Empowering Children Legal Understandings and Experiences of Rights in the Scottish Children’s Hearings System......Page 245
Bibliography......Page 271
Index......Page 289
