Human Rights Consortium publishes view on Safeguarding the Union

05 June 2024

We have today launched a briefing on the Safeguarding the Union package. This provides a civil society perspective on its contents and its implications for human rights and equality protections under the Windsor Framework. The Safeguarding the Union package consists of a Command Paper and three Statutory Instruments and is the product of negotiations between […]

HRC Welcomes High Court’s Judgement on the Illegal Migration Act

13 May 2024

The Human Rights Consortium welcomes today’s judgement from the High Court disapplying multiple provisions of the Illegal Migration Act in Northern Ireland due to their incompatibility with the Windsor Framework and declaring provisions incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The challenge was brought by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) alongside an […]

Human Rights Consortium Reacts to High Court Judgment on the Legacy Act

29 February 2024

The Human Rights Consortium, a coalition of 160 NGOs dedicated to a rights based society, welcomes the significant ruling yesterday in the High Court that the immunity provisions of the Legacy Act breach the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Article 2 of the Windsor Framework. This ruling underscores the ongoing importance of Article […]

Rwanda Bill: An Attack on Fundamental Rights

08 December 2023

The UK government this week introduced the ‘Safety of Rwanda Bill’ to limit the use of human rights laws to challenge their attempts to automatically remove asylum seekers to Rwanda. The Human Rights Consortium has criticized the introduction of the Bill as a violation of basic human rights guarantees of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, the […]

The Windsor Framework: the Good, the Bad and the Untested

29 September 2023

The Windsor Framework, and the Protocol that came before it, were developed and negotiated between the EU and the UK to manage the new regulatory framework in Northern Ireland resulting from the UK’s exit from the EU, while maintaining the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement commitments to cross-border cooperation and to maintaining the Common Travel Area between […]

Header image featuring a test paper and pencil. Text reads: "Windsor Framework, The Good, the Band and the Untested"

‘5 Tests’ for the Protocol Deal – Press Release

27 February 2023

The Brexit and Human Rights Working Group, convened and chaired by the Human Rights Consortium, has released their ‘5 Tests’ for the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol Deal, focusing on the key commitments on rights and equality protections contained within the Protocol. A fair Protocol deal to protect human rights must: Make no changes to Article 2 […]

NI Protocol Bill (it’s still kickin’!) – HRC Written Evidence

23 November 2022

As the law-breaking NI Protocol Bill continues its steady passage through the House of Lords, their EU Affairs Sub-Committee wrapped up its scrutiny of the Bill by publishing all written evidence received and sending a letter to the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly MP, outlining their concerns with the Bill and the engagement they had undertaken. […]

The NI Protocol Bill – what is it, and what now?

08 July 2022

We in the Human Rights Consortium were extremely disappointed to see that Liz Truss’ proposed Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which outlines dramatic alterations to the Protocol while conferring powers to UK Government Ministers to amend or disapply most Articles of the Protocol at their discretion, passed the second reading stage in the Commons on the […]