Chapter 2: How do human rights work – the legal overview

There are three layers of human rights protection in the UK – domestic, regional and international. These are enforced and monitored in different ways.

2.1 The Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights

The Human Rights Act came into force in the UK on 2 October 2000. The Act brings most of the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. The European Convention on Human Rights, which UK lawyers and civil servants helped to draft, was agreed in 1950 by the Council of Europe. The UK signed up to this Convention in 1951. The list of the rights it contains can be found here.

These points are covered in more detail in our factsheet on ‘How the Human Rights Act works’.

It’s also very important to remember that the Human Rights Act is not just about the law and taking cases to court. As the later chapters in this toolkit demonstrate, the Act is relevant to many of the decisions people make and the situations people experience on a daily basis. We hope the toolkit will encourage you to use the Human Rights Act ‘beyond the courtroom’ in your advocacy for individuals and in your wider campaigning and lobbying work.

2.2 The UN human rights treaties

The UK has signed up to a series of international human rights treaties (also called Conventions or Covenants) agreed by the United Nations. These treaties place legal obligations on the states that sign up to them, in contrast to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is not a legally binding document. The text of these treaties can be found on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Key things you need to know about the UN human rights treaties:

• There are nine core UN human rights treaties
• They cover a range of issues and groups including torture, women and racial discrimination
• They cover a broader range of rights than the Human Rights Act and European Convention
• Each treaty is monitored and enforced by an expert UN committee through a state reporting system, individual complaints mechanisms and general comments
• You cannot bring a case in the UK courts against the Government using one of these treaties as they are not part of UK law
• However, they can act as very powerful campaigning tools

You can find out more about the UN human rights treaties by downloading our factsheet on the international human rights system.

2.3. Different laws, different rights

As you’ll have seen from the above, one of the key differences between the different human rights laws is the way they are monitored and enforced. Another important difference is the rights they contain.

You will probably have noticed that the list of rights in the European Convention is much smaller than the UDHR. You may have also noticed that a number of rights that are missing are related to economic and social issues, such as the right to health and the right to a minimum standard of living. This is currently a gap in our human rights protection. However, some of the rights contained in the European Convention, such as the right to respect for private and family life, can still be used to tackle everyday economic and social issues.

Since the rights contained in the European Convention are enforceable in the UK courts through the Human Rights Act, these are the rights that voluntary and community sector organisations can currently use most directly in their work, particularly with regards to advocacy. Therefore, the next two chapters focus on some of these rights in more detail. However, it is important to remember that at an international level there is a more widely recognised set of rights that provide a wide range of exciting campaigning and lobbying opportunities.

Before moving on to the next section, test your knowledge so far with our human rights quiz.