Human Rights

The Scottish Human Rights Commission has urged peers to challenge the Illegal Migration Bill as it moves to its second reading in the House of Lords today. The characterisation of those arriving by irregular means as "illegal entrants" ignores the fact there are no safe or legal routes ava

People with disabilities living in displacement camps after the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye are being overlooked in the humanitarian response to the disaster, Amnesty International has said in a new report. The report, 'We all need dignity’: The exclusion of persons with disabiliti

UK government plans to impose minimum service levels on public services during strike action are likely to be incompatible with human rights law in their current form, Westminster's Joint Committee on Human Rights has found. In a report published following legislative scrutiny of the Strikes (Minimu

Jenny Dickson considers what a human rights based approach in the Scottish and UK Covid-19 Inquiries may look like. Both the Scottish and the UK governments have established public inquiries to examine the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The inquiries are underway, both considering a wide range o

Today, 24 February 2023, marks exactly one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. In October 2022, at the opening ceremony of the IBA Annual Conference in Miami, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed delegates by video in which he referred to members of the audience as "defenders of the

Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, reviews another difficult year for human rights. I look back on 2022 with a mixture of admiration for those brave human rights defenders who have refused to be silenced, and dismay at the weasel words of politicians and corporate lead

Campaigners from Kenya, Indonesia and Afghanistan are undertaking a fellowship at the University of Dundee designed to support those at risk for their work in protecting human rights around the world. Riska Carolina, from Indonesia, and Junia, from Kenya, will spend up to six months at Dundee as par

Lawyers for the family of murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh have submitted a new complaint against Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The complaint alleges that Ms Abu-Akleh and another Al Jazeera journalist, Ali Samoudi, were deliberately targeted by Israeli forces de

Professor Alan Miller will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Scottish Legal Awards on Thursday. Professor Miller is an expert in human rights law and has four decades of experience as a human rights practitioner, including being unanimously elected by the Scottish Parliament to an eight-

Hungary is set to lose billions of euros of EU funding in connection with breaches of the principles of the rule of law under proposals from the European Commission. Around €7.5 billion could be withheld pending Hungary's implementation of remedial measures agreed after months of talks between

The annual report of the United Nations Secretary-General on the death penalty confirmed that Saudi Arabia, along with other countries, has resumed executions in light of widespread violations of international law. The report was issued in the 51st session of the Human Rights Council, covers the per

Former senator Lord Glennie has been urged to step down from his role at a court in the Middle East over “egregious human rights abuses” in the region, The Times reports. Last year he was sworn in as a judge of the Court of Appeal in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) courts

The lives of women and girls in Afghanistan are being devastated by the Taliban’s crackdown on their human rights, Amnesty International has said in a new report. Since they took control of the country in August 2021, the Taliban have violated women’s and girls’ rights to education

Lady Hale has defended the Human Rights Act, which the UK government wants to replace with a new Bill of Rights. In an interview with The Guardian, the former president of the Supreme Court said: "The Human Rights Act is a perfectly good piece of legislation. There’s absolutely no need to scra

The UK government has been told that a new trade deal with Israel "must not be a betrayal of Palestinians' human rights" as negotiations begin. Amnesty International has submitted a 19-page briefing to the Department of Trade, setting out how the agreement should be framed to avoid reinforcing Israe