3.5 The European Court of Human Rights Section II of the European Convention on Human Rights comprises thirty-three articles, which are all related to the setting up and conduct of proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights. They include, for example, the power to make rules governing how applications are made to the Court, how the Court is conducted, how judges are appointed to the Court and their period of appointment. Each HCP is able to appoint one judge to the European Court of Human Rights. In its original f
3.2 What is the European Convention on Human Rights? In the aftermath of the Second World War there were public disclosures of huge numbers of cases of brutal, inhuman and tyrannical treatment of people, frequently within the civilian populations of occupied countries. Many serious concerns arose about the way in which millions of people had been mistreated at the instigation of or with the connivance or concurrence of government. There was almost universal disgust and condemnation at the disclosures made, together with a general recognition th
3.1 Part B overview The European Convention on Human Rights was introduced in course W100_4 Europe and the law, and through your previous studies you have probably already considered cases (such as that of Diane Pretty) where articles of the European Convention on Human Rights were under debate. Here you will look at its legal implications in more detail. You will consider how the European Convention on Human Rights came into being, why it was considered necessary to create such an instrument, what are it
2.4 Summary of Part A Part A explored the development of humanitarian and human rights law. The development of new democracies with written constitutions laid the framework for the general recognition of rights such as freedom of speech. General principles emerged: certain rights exist because a human being is entitled to ‘humanity’; those rights cannot be denied or taken away; recognition of the rule of law.
2.2 Slavery reform Some of the first international concerns over human rights, as they would now be recognised, were expressed about slavery at the end of the eighteenth century. Somerset's case in 1772 challenged the acceptance of slavery in the UK. This case is regarded as a turning point, as statutory abolition followed in the UK. Out of this changing social, political and legal attitude towards slavery grew a movement which sought to prohibit slavery internationally. It was not possible to secure the freedo
2.1 Treaties, conventions and constitutions International human rights are part of a much wider area, public international law, which in broad terms encompasses law relating to the legal rights, duties and powers of one nation state in relation to its dealings with other nation states. These rights, duties and powers are set out in international treaties or conventions. Such treaties and conventions may be global in their application or restricted to certain regions of the world. Reference to a work on international human rights treati
1 Course overview This course will look at the concept of rights in their broadest sense: a freedom to do or be protected from something; a claim to do or enjoy something; a power to do something which affects others and not to be challenged over that use of power. This concept of rights defines the position of an individual and does not consider collective or majority rights. As you may already know, the subject of rights,
Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: understand the historical growth of the idea of human rights demonstrate an awareness of the international context of human rights demonstrate an awareness of the position of human rights in the UK prior to 1998 understand the importance of the Human Rights Act 1998 analyse and evaluate concepts and ideas.
Introduction This course considers the growth of human rights and humanitarian law before looking at the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in detail. It will also look at the position of human rights in the UK and the effect of the Human Rights Act 1998. This OpenLearn course provides a sample of Level 1 study in Law
Acknowledgements The following material is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this course: Co
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Keep on learning   There are more than 800 courses on OpenLearn for you to 7.2 An EU constitution: moving the debate on In the next activity you will be able to build upon the previous one and observe the way in which the debate on the new EU constitution has progressed and moved to another level on its way to ratification. 7.1 Towards a constitution The European treaties establishing the European Union: create an institutional structure for decision making, and set out the freedoms of the individuals and the limits of the decision-making powers over the citizens. The treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was signed by the member states in October 2004. However, at the time of writing (2005), the process of ratification is in abeyance following the rejection o 6.5 The principle of subsidiarity This is defined in Article 5(1) EC and 5(2) EC. It requires decision-making bodies with responsibility for larger areas to perform only those functions that decision-making bodies with responsibility for smaller areas cannot fulfil themselves. For instance, the Treaty requires the Community to take action ‘only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States …’ and can ‘by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed act 6.3 The principle of direct effect Does the principle of supremacy of EU law mean that the ECJ is the only court in charge of applying and enforcing EU law? The answer to this question is ‘no’, which is the consequence of the principle of direct effect. Certain provisions of EU law may confer rights or impose obligations on individuals that national courts are bound to recognise and enforce. This means that the national courts must apply the directly applicable EU rules and must do so in priority over any conflicting provi 5.3 EU secondary legislation Law made by the EU institutions in exercising the powers conferred on them by the treaties is referred to as secondary legislation. This legislation includes: regulations directives decisions recommendations opinions. Another EU institution often required to contribute to the EU law-making process is the European Court of Justice. This has two main functions: 4.4 The Council of the European Union The Council represents the interests of the individual member states and is seen as the legislative arm of the EU. It is composed of active representatives of the governments of the member states. Usually, these representatives are the departmental or junior ministers responsible for the matters under consideration at a specific Council meeting. This means that the Council itself, unlike the Commission, has no stable membership. Its membership varies depending upon the issues tabled for discu 3.5.1 Try some yourself Carry out the following calculations, without your calculator. (a) 3 × (60 + 70). (b) (3 × 60) + 70. (c) (70 − 60) ÷ 5. 1.4 Number lines It is often useful in mathematics to think of numbers stretched out along the imaginary number line. The diagram below shows part of the number line.
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Activity 7 A snapshot from the EU constitutional debate (2)
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Activity 30