The Human Rights Act – Changing Lives

‘Human rights are so powerful - staff do take their jobs seriously and are trying to do what's right' (case study 13, Changing Lives)

BIHR believes that human rights can be used to improve the delivery of public services and as a tool for achieving social change more broadly. Based on evidence from our training and capacity building on the UK Human Rights Act, and the work of others, Changing Lives documents real life examples of how human rights and the HRA can make a difference to people in their everyday lives.

Now in its second edition, with more than 30 case studies, Changing Lives shows that ordinary people going about their day-to-day lives are benefiting from the law, without resorting to the law. Too often the Human Rights Act is associated with technical legal arguments or perceived to be limited to certain types of cases or issues. These case studies reveal a very different picture. They show how groups and people themselves are using not only human rights law, but also the language and ideas of human rights to challenge poor treatment and negotiate improvements to services provided by public bodies. Giving people the power to use human rights as a check against the state in this way is precisely what was envisaged when Parliament passed the Human Rights Act in 1998.

Key learning points from Changing Lives:

• The language and ideas of human rights have a dynamic life beyond the courtroom
• Human rights have a wide application, addressing people's lived and varied experiences in a range of circumstances
• Human rights offer a vision of equality which can protect people from ill-treatment by ‘plugging gaps' in our anti-discrimination framework
• Human rights provide a framework for balancing competing rights
• The language and ideas of human rights can be used by public sector organisations and staff to consider the needs of individual service users
• There is evidence for an emerging culture of human rights

Key conclusions from Changing Lives:

• A major public awareness campaign is needed to illustrate the benefits of the Human Rights Act to everyone, which shows that human rights do not necessarily require direct recourse to the law and that human rights are relevant and beneficial to a wide range of people, situations and circumstances.
• The Human Rights Act provides a framework for balancing people's rights against each other. People need to be encouraged and empowered to use the Human Rights Act, which not only can improve their individual circumstances, but would also generate further good practice in balancing rights and contribute to the promotion of a culture of human rights based on dignity, respect, equality, autonomy and fairness.
• Public authorities should proactively and strategically integrate human rights throughout the delivery and design of services, policy and practice, as well as addressing individual human rights cases and challenges.

You can download a copy of Changing Lives (second edition) here.

To request a hardcopy please email gcreaven@bihr.org.uk

If you would like to share examples of where the Human Rights Act has made a difference either by individuals or their advocates using the Human Rights Act to negotiate better services or treatment, or by organisations (e.g., public bodies, charities, private companies, etc) using it to improve their policy, practice or services please email us at gcreaven@bihr.org.uk

Related documents

BIHR's press release on the launch of Changing Lives (second edition) here.

You can download a copy of Changing Lives (first edition, 2007) here.