Performing Identities

Rights

On this page, you will find all the work we are doing on rights in Northern Ireland. Broadly, this covers those rights guaranteed by the Good Friday Agreement; those guaranteed by the Common Travel Area arrangements and related arrangements; those guaranteed by EU membership for those with an EU nationality; and those guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights.

Discussion Paper on Brexit.

This report examines the impact of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) upon human rights and equality issues. Brexit will significantly re-orientate both Northern Ireland’s (NI’s) established human rights structures and the inter-connected human rights’ infrastructure and relationships across Ireland and the UK.

It was written by Colin Murray, Aoife O’Donoghue and Ben Warwick for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. Mr Colin Murray is a Senior Lecturer at Newcastle Law School, Newcastle University, Professor Aoife O’Donoghue is a Professor at Durham Law School, Durham University, and Dr Ben Warwick is a Lecturer at Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham.

The views expressed within this paper do not necessarily represent the views of the Commissions, nor the employers of the authors.

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The Implications of the Good Friday Agreement for UK Human-Rights Reform.

Speculation is rife as to the impact of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement upon the Conservative Government’s plans to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. In the face of this speculation, the UK’s Conservative Government has provided little detail as to how UK human-rights reform will address the requirement for incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Northern Ireland settlement. We therefore analyse the Agreement as both an international treaty and peace agreement and evaluate its interrelationship with the Human Rights Act and the Northern Ireland Act. Once the hyperbole surrounding the Agreement and its attendant domestic legislation is stripped away, the effects of the 1998 settlement are in some regards more extensive than has to date been recognised, but in other respects are less far-reaching than some of the Human Rights Act’s supporters claim. The picture that emerges from our analysis is of an intricately woven constitution dependent on devolution arrangements, peace agreements, and international relationships.

The Implications of the Good Friday Agreement for UK Human-Rights ReformDownload

The Place of Northern Ireland within UK Human Rights Reform.

Considerable speculation has surrounded the impact of the Good Friday Agreement’s provisions on human rights upon the Conservative Government’s proposals for repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998. This Policy Paper seeks to demystify this aspect of the debate over the future of the Human Rights Act, examining the terms of the Good Friday Agreement as an international treaty and peace agreement and explaining its interrelationship with both the Human Rights Act and the Devolution Acts. Once some of the hyperbole that surrounds the Agreement and its attendant domestic legislation is removed, it can be seen that the impact of the Agreement is in some regards more extensive than has to date been recognised, whilst in other respects the Agreement has less impact than some of the supporters of the Human Rights Act claim. Reform of arrangements so fundamental to governance in the UK should not be taken lightly, but at present the offhand treatment of the place of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights in the Northern Ireland settlement generates just such a danger.

The Place of Northern Ireland Within UK Human Rights ReformDownload