The Moral Force of the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act

Abstract

This article is based on a lecture that was delivered while the author was still in practice at the Bar of England and Wales. The theme of the lecture was the historical and philosophical origins of human rights law and, in particular, the United Kingdom's Human Rights Act 1998. Drawing on his experience of cases in the first decade that that Act was in force, he suggests that the courts of the United Kingdom have sought to give powerful expression to the moral force of human rights law, in particular the concept of equality and the protection of minorities. He also seeks to address the question whether human rights need to be balanced against responsibilities.