This article traces the origins of the declaration of rights in the human rights and equality section of the 1998 Belfast-Good Friday Agreement, which secured a fragile peace in Northern Ireland. It sets out in detail for the first time the drafting history of the declaration, set against the complex negotiating history of the Agreement as a whole, describing the multiple actors involved in the evolution of the declaration and their motivations, including republican and loyalist paramilitary groups, feminists and civil rights organisations, Irish and British civil servants and political advisors, as well as the political parties. It thus provides a detailed account of the evolution of human rights thinking at a critical stage of the Northern Ireland peace process. The article argues that it is now more important than ever to understand this history. Although originally conceived as merely declaratory, this declaration has, since the European Union–United Kingdom (EU–UK) Withdrawal Agreement following Brexit, taken on a new lease of life due to the Ireland–Northern Ireland Protocol to the EU–UK Withdrawal Agreement, which accorded the declaration of rights a legal status in domestic and international law that it did not have previously. The article concludes with a reflection on the implications of the history recounted in this article for the future interpretation and application of the Protocol (now, the Windsor Framework), and for the study of the historiography of human rights more broadly, emphasising in particular the extent to which the declaration exemplifies a syncretic rather than an eclectic human rights instrument.

ABSTRACT: Religion has played a huge role in the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland. There has been little comparative analysis, however, of the legal elements of this topic. This paper maps legal developments relating to religion to consider convergence and divergence since partition. It focuses on three distinct areas of engagement between law and religion: freedom of religion, religious discrimination, and ethical–moral claims with a religious dimension, such as abortion and contraception. The paper concludes that law's engagement with religion has differed markedly in some respects across the two jurisdictions, while remaining remarkably similar in others. While legal change since partition has sometimes been either an outcome or a reflection of underlying political, economic and social forces, at other times the law itself has been a major factor in social change. The paper concludes by considering forces that might drive further convergence or divergence on the island of Ireland.

Weil ich ihm nicht trau, wir sind befreundet.1Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to recent scholarship over the formation of international treaties, and the complex role of trust in negotiations leading to such treaties, through a case study of the development of human rights protections in Northern Ireland following the decision of the United Kingdom (UK) to exit from the European Union (EU). The absence of trust between the UK and its EU negotiating partners led to an enhanced role for international law. This article demonstrates that while, in principle, the UK Government sought, within the constraints of parliamentary sovereignty, to operate in the human rights field freed from the previous constraints of EU human rights law, in practice, the Government found itself significantly constrained in departing from the EU human rights acquis Communautaire in Northern Ireland, largely due to external pressures exerted by the EU institutions working together with the Irish Government and civil society actors on the island of Ireland. The UK was not trusted to honour merely political commitments, as a result of the domestic political chaos following the result of the Brexit referendum, and the deep unease elicited by the growth of "sovereignist" rhetoric in the UK. This resulted in international legal obligations playing a critical role, being used to trump the UK Government's preferred freedom to depart from human rights norms. These crystallised in Article 2 of the Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol (renamed the Windsor Framework in March 2023) to the European Union- United Kingdom Withdrawal Agreement and the national and international governance and enforcement arrangements that aim to make it effective. Article 2 obliges the UK to ensure that its exit from the EU will not result in any diminution of the rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity guaranteed in the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

The sad reality is that Brexit has contributed to an emerging breakdown of the Rule of Law in the United Kingdom. The famous slogan: ‘Take Back Control’ left open what a post-Brexit society should become. As a result, of course, what Brexit meant had to be worked out after the referendum, and here is where the tensions with the Rule of Law began in earnest, because ‘taking back control’ became, in effect, the only principle and anything that stood in the way of achieving that result was to be sacrificed, including the Rule of Law.

TheWithdrawal Agreement (WA) has several common provisions which set out various obligations as to how the WA (and the Protocol as an integral part of the WA) is to be interpreted and applied. Among these are the duty of ‘good faith’ and the duty of ‘sincere cooperation’, which feature in Article 5 WA. This provides, in part, that the EU and the UK ‘shall, in full mutual respect and good faith, assist each other in carrying out tasks which flow from this Agreement’. In addition, Article 5 provides that this obligation of good faith ‘is without prejudice to the application of Union law pursuant to this Agreement, in particular the principle of sincere cooperation’.

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union renders a united Ireland more likely than before. Unification, if it occurs, is likely to be accompanied by significant constitutional change or a new constitution. This chapter explores how the structure of governance could be adapted to make a newly unified state more sensitive to the concerns and aspirations of those from the Ulster Scots and Ulster British traditions. The chapter considers how consociational government for Northern Ireland could continue within a united Ireland, and assesses how a divergence of interests could lead to significant tensions between the national institutions and the devolved institutions, and within the national institutions themselves. The chapter identifies the many provisions of the current Irish constitution that posit a notion of Irish identity exclusionary of those from the Ulster Scots and Ulster British traditions. But their removal—at least without detailed consideration of how the constitution might be amended to respect multiple identities—risks reducing the sympathy of existing citizens for the unified State. The chapter concludes by exploring how the various constitutional changes considered would be interpreted and amendable after unification.

This article addresses the correctness of Samuel Moyn’s contention that the inclusion of ‘dignity’ in the Irish Constitution of 1937 reflects a particularistic, sectarian and conservative Catholic viewpoint, rather than (as some other scholars do) seeing the inclusion of ‘dignity’ as the first tentative step towards the instantiation of a universalistic, liberal human rights ethic into the Irish Constitution. For Moyn, ‘dignity’s’ sectarian, political origins in Ireland add weight to his sceptical approach to human rights more generally, given the extent to which human dignity is now seen as underpinning the justification of human rights. In arguing against Moyn’s conclusions, the article provides a detailed re-examination, based on archival research, of the drafting of the Preamble to the Irish Constitution in which the term ‘dignity’ is located, situating it in the intellectual changes in political Catholicism and Irish nationalism at that time. In particular, the article examines for the first time to what extent insights can be gleaned from the contemporaneous translation of ‘dignity’ into the Irish language version of the Constitution, and the significance of the choice of ‘uaisleacht’ in the Irish text. Drawing from this, the article identifies the various different influences that appear to have contributed to the use and meaning of dignity in the Preamble, before returning to consider how far Moyn’s assessments are correct in light of the re-examination of the drafting history.

The idea of "positive action" has long been regarded as a key element in a gender equality strategy and has been extensively promoted by the European Union (EU) as such. This brief comment considers: (i) how far positive action has been adopted in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA); (ii) the reasons why the practice of positive action has fallen short of the ambitions that the EU has had for it; and (iii) how it might best be resurrected. I emphasize in particular the need for a radically revised regulatory approach to be adopted, one more in keeping with the insights of regulatory theory in other contexts.

The Supreme Court got it right in the Ashers ('Gay cake') case. It decided correctly the important legal issues central to the case: the scope of indissociability; the scope of 'associative' discrimination in sexual orientation goods and services discrimination claims; whose characteristics are relevant for determining whether an action amounts to unlawful discrimination; and the extent of the protection which freedom of expression accords individual service providers and companies from 'forced' or 'compelled' political and religious expression. Much of the critical commentary that followed the case is overblown. In some respects, the case is somewhat less legally significant, and less legally controversial, than the commentary would suggest. Underlying some of the resistance to the decision is a sense that the Court should have manipulated the legal test of unlawful discrimination to reach a morally satisfying result. This is not how the Court should decide such cases, leading as it does to a severe rupture with the idea of legality and the Rule of Law. In any event, the three (moral) arguments that are drawn on-dignity, equality, and conscience-scepticism-are less helpful that might appear in addressing Ashers-type cases, and do not undermine the normative foundations of the Supreme Court's decision.

This report considers the use of ‘positive action’ as a key mechanism to advance women’s equality in employment, and to ensure gender-balanced company boards. ‘Positive action’ involves the use of measures that are taken by Governments or other actors to: enable or encourage members of ‘protected groups’ (such as women) to overcome or at least reduce current or past disadvantages (including discrimination); to meet the needs of the protected group that differ from other groups; or to enable or encourage those in the protected groups to participate in a particular activity where they might otherwise be under-represented. The report identifies the current legal and regulatory frameworks and scope of positive action in European Union law and policy, and in the 28 European Union Member States (including the United Kingdom), and the three members of the European Economic Area (comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway). The report aims to lay bare tensions and gaps that may arise in the applicable legal framework between different levels of legal authority, but in particular between EU law and national approaches to positive action. Addressing this issue involves a reflection on whether there are possible inconsistencies or shortcomings in the current EU legal treatment of positive action (including the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union). In light of this analysis, the report makes recommendations for possible European Union action, including suggestions for actions that may be included in any forthcoming EU gender strategy.

An account of what we know about the use by domestic courts of international human rights law is identified, based on the findings in this volume and earlier work on the use of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). From that, three aspects of the domestic functions of international human rights treaties are tentatively identified as particularly significant: international human rights law is only partly internationally-directed; domestic courts very seldom appear to be acting as ‘agents’ of international human rights law; and ‘human dignity’ (sometimes by itself, sometimes alongside ‘autonomy’ and ‘equality’) acts as an important meta-principle in the domestic use of international human rights law. The implications these functions have for normative theorising about human rights, in particular practice-dependent theories of human rights, is considered, and a theory of human rights law consistent with this practice is identified.

Policy prescription is thus often encountered in legal scholarship, sometimes addressed to the courts, sometimes to policy makers in government. In Britain, however, neoclassical economics is almost entirely absent from academic legal study, except in such sub-disciplines as competition law, and to a lesser extent labour law, company law and regulation. If people are irrationally attracted to endowments, or irrationally influenced by the way choices are presented, then this has important implications for legal decision-making. Themes drawn from Critical Legal Studies have influenced several British socio-legal scholars. But Critical Legal Studies has also become more sophisticated. The approach to law in doctrinal legal scholarship is also changing in ways that allow for increased multi-disciplinary work. Legal research is impliedly missing the point, reifying the legal at the expense of the real determinants of the social. Legal research has engaged with the more social sciences in ways that would have seemed unlikely even 50 years ago.

This paper considers what comparison (in general) means, in the sense of what the nature and purpose of comparison is. I aim to produce a rough taxonomy of the common aims of comparison, and why it appears to be so controversial. I am particularly interested in considering when comparisons are regarded as inappropriate, and I contrast conventions regarding inappropriate comparison in legal scholarship with several other disciplines where conventions about what it is inappropriate to compare have developed.

On 27 October 2016 Edinburgh Law School, the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, the Global Justice Academy, the Human Rights Centre, and the Edinburgh Europa Institute came together at Edinburgh Law School to discuss two inter-connected developments of profound significance for the constitutional order of the United Kingdom: Brexit and a British Bill of Rights. Although the discussion ranged widely, human rights protection, and the prospect of regression in existing rights protection, was the primary focus.This research paper reflects the discussions at the workshop on the nature of these developments, and the possible implications of each development for the United Kingdom across a range of dimensions: the devolution settlements, the peace settlement in Northern Ireland based on the Good Friday Agreement, parliamentary supremacy, the UK’s relationship with the European Union, and the UK’s international obligations beyond the EU’s legal order. It is grouped around four key themes: • Concrete reduction in rights protection;• Consent;• Constitutional complexity; and • Community.

I aim to provide a critique of Patrick Macklem’s thesis in The Sovereignty of Human Rights that the function of human rights in international law should be seen ‘in terms of their capacity to monitor the structure and operation of the international legal order … requir[ing] the international legal order to attend to pathologies of its own making.’ I suggest an alternative account that seems to me to be more consistent with much of the practice that he describes, which I rearrange to provide a more convincing narrative. The function of human rights in international law does have the function that Macklem attributes to it, among others, but to claim that this is the function of international human rights law is to underestimate the complexity of human rights as well as their true significance (at least in my view). An analysis of international human rights law must take this complexity into account if a coherent and convincing explanation of the normativity of international human rights law is to stand any chance of being identified.

Human rights codes for transnational corporations: what can the Sullivan and MacBride principles tell us? Get access C McCrudden C McCrudden Lincoln College, Oxford, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Volume 19, Issue 2, SUMMER , Pages 167–202, https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/19.2.167 Published: 01 June 1999

This paper considers the relationship between the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement, which underpins the peace settlement in Northern Ireland, and Brexit. In particular, the paper examines the implications of Brexit for rights under the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement. The paper details the problems Brexit poses for rights in Northern Ireland, and the contrasting positions adopted in the Article 50 negotiations by the EU-27 and the UK. Finally, the paper considers the UK Withdrawal Bill, and the effects of the Bill on the devolution arrangements in Northern Ireland.

UK withdrawal from the EU poses many challenges for Northern Ireland. The preferred option of Northern Ireland's First Minister and deputy First Minister is, in many respects, for the status quo to be maintained. An approach that could mitigate some of the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland and maintain much of the economic status quo is for Northern Ireland to become a member of the European Economic Area (EEA). This paper sets out what the EEA offers and highlights how EEA membership might be achieved as well as the issues it raises. In the EEA, Northern Ireland would retain full access to the Single Market. It would continue to be part of a European market with the free movement of goods, services, capital and people. EEA membership would also permit some citizenship rights to be maintained. It would not be a panacea, however. It would also bring with it political and legal challenges. But it is a known arrangement and would therefore ensure a significant degree of certainty.