Weekly Human Rights News: 10/07/2024

This week’s human rights news includes an announcement about Sir Nicolas Bratza stepping down as Chair of BIHR’s Board of Trustees and news about our CEO’s guest session on NDTi’s New Directors leadership programme.

After several decades of working with BIHR, Sir Nicolas Bratza, former President of the European Court of Human Rights, is stepping down as Chair of our Board of Trustees. He will be succeeded by current trustee and human rights lawyer Imran Khan KC. Imran is well known for his representation of the family of Stephen Lawrence during the private prosecution, inquest, and public inquiry into Stephen’s murder.

 In a piece marking his retirement and originally published in abbreviated form in The Times on 04 July 2024, Sir Nicolas shared his “fervent hope” that the Human Rights Act will “continue to be a beacon for the protection of human rights” in the years to come.

BIHR has partnered with a range of NDTi programmes, and this week our CEO Sanchita led one of the guest sessions on NDTi’s New Directors leadership programme, commissioned through Skills for Care. The session worked with a range of current and aspiring Directors of Adult Social care, focusing on their role as strategic leads in promoting human rights practice within their organisations. We looked at the duties in the Human Rights Act, and how adult social care services can harness these in their day to day practice, from ensuring rights-respecting policies through to ensuring human rights are at the heart of decision-making.

Following the session, surveys show 100% felt more confident in integrating the Human Rights Act into their work, describing their one-word take aways as “thought-proving”, “empowered” “brilliant” and a focus on “duty” and “obligation”.

We’re excited to announce the 4 community groups selected to partner with us and Just Fair as part of our London Communities Programme over the next 4 years. We’ll be providing support and funding to help each organisation embed human rights into their work and advocacy.

Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation works to enable the development, agency & participation of Latin Americans and other Spanish- & Portuguese speaking migrants. They’ll be working to embed a human rights approach across all their work & disseminate crucial knowledge.

Unfold has been supporting families & young people in Westminster for 30+ years. They’ll be focusing on developing work with people with specialised needs, incl. people seeking asylum, young people with experience of care, and those excluded from mainstream education.

Community Plan for Holloway are a participant-led, grassroots coalition passion about social justice and human rights. They’ll be addressing the need for more quality, sustainable and climate-change-proof social housing in their local borough.

Southall Community Alliance was established in 2000 to serve the local community. They’ll be partnering with other groups to provide human rights training to residents and to create a film that captures the impact of human rights awareness

Following the success of our first summer workshop we are offering community groups and voluntary sector organisations based in London the chance to join us for another FREE human rights capacity building session.

This is an opportunity to learn what the protections the Human Rights Act offers your community and how you can use the law in advocacy with public services to create positive change. Together we’ll map key issues facing your community to human rights law, and how to embed a human rights based approach within your community.  

The half-day workshop takes place on Wednesday 17th July from 9.30-12.30 pm. Lunch will be provided following the event. The session will take place at The Abbey Centre, SW1P 3BU.

The UK Government confirmed it is dropping the Rwanda scheme

The Rwanda scheme was a plan created by the former UK Government to send people who arrive in the UK to seek asylum to Rwanda to have their claim heard there. The UK Supreme Court said the scheme as originally introduced put people’s right to be free from inhuman or degrading treatment at risk. 

Following the General Election 2024 which led to a change in leadership, the UK Government confirmed it does not intend to continue with the Rwanda scheme. It also told the High Court in an ongoing case that there were no flights to Rwanda "currently scheduled or...intended to be scheduled."