Changing the face of human rights

05/02/2009

Australia's National Human Rights Consultation Committee begins its consultations on a Charter of Rights next week in Queenbeyan. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the Right Honourable Jack Straw MP, lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice, has had to confront disquiet from some members of the public over the Human Rights Act.

Delivering the keynote speech at the annual conference of the British Institute of Human Rights, Mr Straw asked the rhetorical question: "why - in spite of the manifest benefits - the Human Rights Act is held in less affection by the public". He concedes that there is "a perception out there that the Act is a villains' charter".

The only way of challenging this view, he says, is to "encourage a genuine dialectic" and "to inject a dose of realism to a debate that can tend towards the abstract and the rarefied".

Moving on to the subject of a proposed Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, Mr Straw continued:

_Europe and the UK have changed immeasurably since the time of the European Convention on Human Rights. Broad social change - greater consumerism, globalisation, less homogeneity - have all contributed to what I have previously described as the 'commoditisation of rights'. As a result, I believe that a restatement of what binds us together as a society is ever more necessary.

In response to this changing context, the choice is stark: either rein back on rights and repeal the Human Rights Act as some propose, or build on it, not by reneging on rights but by elevating responsibilities as the Government proposes.

We have always seen the HRA as 'a floor and not a ceiling' as I said during the Second Reading of the Bill in 1998. We saw it as the starting point for the development of a wider culture of rights and responsibilities. At Commons 3rd Reading I was explicit about this when I said, in the context of a human rights culture, that 'there can be no rights without responsibilities and our responsibilities should precede our rights'.

A Bill of Rights and Responsibilities could reflect the full picture of rights and responsibilities we have in the United Kingdom, including across the Welfare State. It could reflect the new priorities for this century, like the well-being of children, or sustainable development - matters which were not priorities in the middle of last._

View the full text of the speech>

**5 February 2009 **

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