Human Rights

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 […]

Read More

Universal Periodic Review submission

04 April 2022

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a mechanism at the United Nations (UN) to examine each Member State’s compliance with human rights and humanitarian obligations. The United Kingdom will be reviewed under the UPR process in 2022. Civil society organisations across the UK had the opportunity to make submissions to that process up until the […]

Read More

Hands off our Human Rights Act

13 March 2022

The Human Rights Consortium has submitted its response to the Ministry of Justice consultation on replacing the Human Rights Act. The submission (available to download below) is heavily critical of proposals by the UK Government to scrap the Human Rights Act (HRA) and replace it with weaker standards. The Consortium outlines that the proposals would be a […]

Read More

Survey finds 80% support Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland

01 April 2021

The Human Rights Consortium welcomes new findings from the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights consultation survey that 80% of respondents believe that a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland is “important or very important,”. The survey was carried out between November 2020 and February 2021 to explore and understand how people today feel about the creation of the Bill of Rights […]

Read More

TCA and Rights – HRC Briefing Paper

15 March 2021

After a very protracted process the EU and UK finally agreed to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on Christmas Eve 2020. The TCA document itself runs to over 1,200 pages and contains many important elements that relate to the future UK approach to human rights. To distil some of these elements the Consortium has […]

Read More

Brexit teething problems or cause to invoke article 16?

18 February 2021

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and the UK clearly helped to avoid the chaos anticipated by a No Deal Brexit that would have created extensive trade barriers and tariffs between the two trading zones. But as the agreement was reached so close to the end of the transition period, there are also […]

Read More

A ‘No Deal Brexit’ threatens rights

07 February 2019

With only a few short weeks until the 29 March, the official date when the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, the prospect of a ‘No Deal Brexit’ is danger of becoming a reality. A reality that would have dire consequences from the perspective of rights protection. Following its failure to get support from Parliament for the […]

Read More

Human Rights implications of Brexit

12 October 2016

We have submitted evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights in Westminster. The Joint Committee is conducting an inquiry into the human rights implications of Brexit and issued a call for evidence. Our submission looks at some key areas which the Committee should explore in more detail: The particular importance of human rights frameworks […]

Read More

Press Release- Brexit Legal Action about Safeguarding Rights and Peace Process

05 October 2016

The Human Rights Consortium is one of the current applicants in a Northern Ireland based Judicial Review of the Brexit process. The Consortium have outlined that the case, which is being heard in the Belfast High Court at present, is focussed on upholding existing human rights protections and the elements of the Northern Ireland peace […]

Read More

Universal Periodic Review Shadow Report Launched

21 September 2016

The Human Rights Consortium has launched its Shadow Report in advance of the Third Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Kingdom in May 2017. The Universal Periodic Review is a mechanism of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations, where each member state is examined by other member states for […]

Read More