Farrell and Hughes on Magna Carta and the Invention of "British Rights" @routledgebooks

Michelle Farrell, University of Liverpool, School of Law and Social Justice, and Edel Hughes, University of Limerick, are publishing Magna Carta and the Invention of 'British Rights' in Human Rights in the Media: Fear and Fetish (Michelle Farrell, Eleanor Drywood, and Edel Hughes, Routledge, 2018) (forthcoming).

In this chapter we argue that the antipathy towards human rights, and the Human Rights Act in particular, that is evident in certain sections of the media and political establishment, lies partly in its relationship with the European, and, therefore, foreign or ‘alien’, system of human rights protection. Somewhat paradoxically though, those who are most trenchant in their criticisms of the Human Rights Act nevertheless stress that Britain is a nation founded upon human rights. Through the lens of the Magna Carta we examine the invention of the tradition of British rights and how the Charter has been co-opted by those who seek to foment opposition to the Human Rights Act and, albeit to a lesser extent, by those who seek to defend the Act by demarcating a clear line of history between the Charter and the Act. Both approaches, we suggest, serve to crowd out the space required for a rational critique of rights.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Civil Liberties In a Time of Fear: The Japanese American Incarceration and the Threat To Muslim Americans: Panel Discussion Oct. 27, 2016 at the Japanese American National Museum

From the mailbox:

The Harvard Law School Association of Los Angeles, the Japanese American National Museum, and the Japanese American Bar Association invite you to join them for a panel discussion:

Civil Liberties In a Time of Fear: The Japanese American Incarceration and the Threat To Muslim Americans

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Speakers include Karen Korematsu, Dr. Irum Shiekh, Edina Lekovic. Warren Olney, host and executive producer of To the Point, moderates. 

  

More here at the HLSA website.

Prosecuting and Defending "Enemies of the State"

Carole I. McCartney, Northumbria University; University of Leeds, School of Law; Bond University; and Clive Walker, University of Leeds, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, have published Enemies of the State and Miscarriages of Justice at 32 Delhi Law Review 17 (2014). Here is the abstract.

Miscarriages of justice are exceptionally prevalent, acute and most often irredeemable when the subject is ‘an enemy of the state’. Nowadays, these subjects usually take the guise of ‘terrorists’ or other variants of ‘extremists’, and the impacts of the miscarriages upon them can be extreme, including the death penalty. Evidence will be provided for this premise mainly from the United Kingdom, but with further examples from other jurisdictions. Reasons for this correlation will be considered. One response is to demand the observance of fundamental rights within the justice process even in times of crisis and threat. In fact, states frequently adopt processes, which diminish normal safeguards and checks against wrongful conviction in such cases. Therefore, given the predilection of states to dilute due process in terrorist/extremist cases, a more practicable remedy might be to concentrate on post-conviction review mechanisms.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.