In the United Kingdom, fundamental rights and fundamental principles reasoning creates tensions on the frontier between law and politics, particularly between parliamentary legislation and judicial interpretation of statutes. As Lord Hoffman said in Simms ‘[f]undamental rights cannot be overridden by general or ambiguous words’ of a statute’. The problem is that aiming to interpret ‘general...
Reconstructing Constitutional theory of Right to life with special reference to Constitution of India
Article 21 of Constitution of India provides, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.“ Obviously, its mandate is both vertical and horizontal. However, it is not clear from its text whether the power of the State to enact the law and lay down procedure...
Settling Human Rights Violations
My paper explores the role of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as a human rights arbitrator through the use of friendly settlements. I discuss whether friendly settlement mechanisms provide better avenues for implementation of international legal standards. By forcing States to internalize the agreement they reach with petitioners, this mechanism creates a different power...
The waiver of human rights as a new constitutional paradigm
Based on jurisprudence from the Supreme Court of Canada and the ECHR, this paper aims to demonstrate that the waiver of human rights is no longer exceptional, but rather a new constitutional paradigm. The rise of the waiver paradigm could be explained by the current struggle for recognition of pluralism, the constitutional principle of autonomy...
The Systemic Approach to Human Rights
In contrast to the more traditional, liberal approach to human rights, epitomized by the work of the European Human Rights System, a more systemic approach has evolved within the Inter-American and African regional systems. This paper highlights the manner in which that approach has evolved through those systems‘ encounters with massive violations, transitional moments, and...