{"id":2696,"date":"2019-07-22T08:21:40","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T08:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2696"},"modified":"2019-07-22T08:47:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T08:47:23","slug":"conservatives-regard-human-rights-as-a-foreign-imposition-but-they-helped-shape-them-in-the-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=2696","title":{"rendered":"Conservatives regard human rights as a foreign imposition \u2013 but they helped shape them in the first place"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Conservative Party regards\nhuman rights as a \u2018foreign\u2019 imposition from Europe. Conservatives opposed\nLabour’s Human Rights Act (HRA) in 1998; recent manifestos have included\nproposals to replace it with a Britis\u00ad\u00ad\u00adh bill of rights; and Conservative\nministers have repeatedly attacked the European Convention on Human Rights\n(ECHR) and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The\ntabloid press frequently portrays human rights as being \u2018soft\u2019 on criminals and\nimmigrants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But human rights have traditionally\nbeen the concern of all leading political parties in the UK, both right and left?wing.\nWhat seems to have been forgotten is the fact that Conservative values lie at\nthe heart of the centuries?long development of human rights in the UK, helping\nto shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948 and the European\nConvention on Human rights (ECHR) 1950.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human rights and\nconservativism<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As well as being committed\nto maintaining traditional institutions and values, Conservatives stand for the\nrights to liberty of the individual, and to a fair (but not an equal) share in\nsocial and economic goods, such as food, housing and education \u2013 as enshrined\nin Whig MP Edmund Burke\u2019s Reflections on the Revolution in France<\/em> (1790).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain’s history of\nrespect for human rights from Magna Carta until the present day is unique among\nnations. In fact, the purpose of UDHR was to encourage the signatory states to\nmake these rights legally binding as, by the standards of the time, they\nalready were in Britain. The UDHR is itself conservative in important respects.\nFirst, the rights spelt out are part of the kind of traditional values that\nconservatives seek to preserve. Second, the UDHR reflects the emphasis\nconservatives place on personal responsibility. The obligation to respect the\nrights set out is a moral obligation binding not just on states, but also upon\n\u2018every individual and every organ of society\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human rights in the UK\nup to the nineteenth century<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Almost all the rights in\nthe UDHR were, at least to some extent, recognised in English common law by the\nend of the eighteenth century, although in many instances expressed more\nnarrowly. For example, the free choice of work and employment (freedom from\nrestraint of trade and monopolies, UDHR article 23) and, the right to\nsubsistence (UDHR article 25) were amongst the social and economic rights\nrecognised since the Middle Ages under common law. However, other rights were\nnot respected adequately or at all before the nineteenth century, such as the\nright to freedom of religion (UDHR article 18).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enforcing human rights\nin the UK continued in the nineteenth century. For example, Conservative Party\npolitician Sir Robert Peel was responsible for Catholic Emancipation in 1829,\nalbeit reluctantly, in the face of peaceful demands by the Irish for the right\nto vote and hold public office. Benjamin Disraeli enacted the Reform Act 1867,\nwhich extended the franchise to households in the towns, and his Conservative\nadministration also advanced other human rights, including the rights of\nassembly, to education, and social and economic rights, with a series of trade\nunion, education and other acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The twentieth century<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Under Conservative\ngovernments, Parliament gave political freedom to Australia and the other\nDominions, and it prepared the way for political freedom in India. In 1928, the\nConservative government gave political liberty and equality to all British\nwomen, that is the right to vote.2<\/strong><\/a> Between the two world wars, it introduced numerous measures\ngiving effect to social and economic rights, and ratified international human\nrights treaties protecting women and children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Winston Churchill,\nthe then Conservative Prime Minister, made the enthronement of human rights a\nwar aim. This aim was achieved by the founding of the United Nations, by the\nUDHR and the ECHR, and by other human rights treaties, including those which give\nrights to refugees and prohibit torture. Conservatives also extended the\nprovisions of the ECHR or the ICCPR to most British Overseas Territories after\nthe war. They gave individuals rights to go to court to challenge government\ndecisions about welfare benefits, education, immigration and much else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1979 to 1997, and\nduring the coalition from 2010, Parliament enacted several human rights\nstatutes such as the Contempt of Court Act 1981 (promoting freedom of\nexpression), the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (promoting rights to liberty\nand to a fair trial) and the Children Act 1989. Many more are listed in the\nlonger version of this article. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent opposition<\/strong> to human rights<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Labour government\nelected in 1997 immediately introduced the Human Rights Bill, based on Quintin\nHogg’s original idea and Margaret Thatcher’s 1978 proposed bill of rights for\nScotland. But by that time support for the proposal amongst Conservatives had\nwaned, and the party opposed it. Memories of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s had\nfaded, and many Conservatives were confused as to what the ECtHR did, and what\nECHR obligations meant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet since 2010,\nConservatives have continued to promote human rights legislation, including the\nProtection of Freedoms Act 2012 (protecting privacy), the Marriage (Same Sex\nCouples) Act 2013, the Defamation Act 2013 (promoting freedom of expression)\nand the Modern Slavery Act 2014. The government has not pursued proposals for a\nBritish bill of rights to replace the HRA, and has expressed its commitment to\nrespect the framework of the ECHR in the Draft Political Declaration setting\nout the framework for the UK’s future relationship with the EU (paragraph 7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservative writers and politicians have been influential in the developing legal protection of human rights in the UK for over two centuries. The threats to democracy and liberty that motivated conservatives to promote human rights are beginning to emerge again today. Given the history outlined above, conservatives ought to be at the forefront of efforts to protect human rights and the values that helped to shape and inform the UDHR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A longer version<\/a> of this article originally appeared in the\u00a0Political Quarterly\u00a0<\/em>journal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Conservative Party regards human rights as a \u2018foreign\u2019 imposition from Europe. Conservatives opposed Labour’s Human Rights Act (HRA) in 1998; recent manifestos have included proposals to replace it with a Britis\u00ad\u00ad\u00adh bill of rights; and Conservative ministers have repeatedly attacked the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the decisions of the European Court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":2697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1395,1404,1396],"tags":[1606],"coauthors":[1625],"class_list":["post-2696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-comment","category-law-and-justice","category-uk","tag-conservatives"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Conservatives-regard-human-rights-as-a-foreign-imposition-\u2013-but-they-helped-shape-them-in-the-first-place-clarisse-meyer-jKU2NneZAbI-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2696"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=2696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}