Today we observe Remembrance Day, first established to mark the end of the first world war at 11am on 11 November 1918. Over the 20th century, it has been additionally used to mark the sacrifice of those who served in later wars, including the second world war, which was fought to prevent the fascist government of Germany from imposing its will across Europe, including its death camps for entire racial groups, lgbt people and the disabled.
My grandfathers fought in the first world war, and my father and uncle in the second. For my parents’ generation, the second world war was an ideological struggle, to free the world of fascism and to allow people to live without fear of a government that could oppress, imprison, or murder any of its citizens at will.
In the ashes of war (and yes, I remember bomb sites in London, though they had been cleared before my time), Europe pulled together to create collaborative bodies designed to prevent a repeat of the horrors of Nazi Germany.
One such body was the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The European Convention on Human Rights
The ECHR was drafted in the years following the second world war as an attempt to protect Europe’s populace from the cruelty of totalitarian states, such as those that had caused so much suffering for them between 1935 and 1945. It predates the European Union and is entirely separate from it. This year marks its semi sesquicentennial anniversary – in common parlance, its 75th birthday.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg oversees the operation of the Convention. The court cannot take any enforcement action against signatories; it offers advice and mediation only. Its powers are limited to requesting that a nation take ‘individual measures’ to rectify a contravention. If a nation refuses to comply with respect to major violations, it can be expelled from the convention. The only example of this so far is the expulsion of Russia in 2022, after its invasion of Ukraine.
Origins
British lawyers played a major role in drafting the ECHR, with the support of parliament, and Winston Churchill as an enthusiastic advocate. The UK’s participation in the process was central: Britain had recently stood alone against Hitler’s Nazi regime, and other nations perspective of the UK at that time was that “the secret [of ordered freedom] had been encapsulated in the British version of parliamentary government”.
On 4 November 1950, the resulting document was signed by:
- Belgium
- Denmark
- France
- Greece
- Ireland
- Italy
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Sweden
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- Iceland and Germany (1950)
- Austria (1956)
- Cyprus (1961)
- Switzerland (1963)
- Malta (1965)
- Portugal (1976)
- Spain (1977)
- Liechtenstein (1978)
- San Marino (1988)
- Finland (1989)
- Hungary (1990)
- Poland (1991)
- Bulgaria (1992)
- Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania (1993)
- Andorra (1994)
- Latvia, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”(1995)
- Croatia (1996)
- Russia (1998; expelled 2022)
- Georgia (1999)
- Armenia and Azerbaijan (2001)
- Bosnia and Herzegovina (2002),
- Serbia (2003)
- Monaco (2004)
- Montenegro (2007)
All these states belong to the Council of Europe, for which the ECHR serves as a charter. This body is entirely separate from European Union. The only European nations not currently members of the ECHR are Belarus and Russia.
Articles
The original articles of the ECHR set out the following rights:
- The right to life
- Freedom from the threat of torture, degrading treatment or degrading punishment
- Freedom from the threat of slavery or servitude
- Liberty and security of person
- The right to a fair trial, including the presumption of innocence
- Respect for privacy and family life
- Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
- Freedom of expression
- Freedom of association and peaceful assembly
- The right to marry and found a family
- The right to an effective remedy where rights have been contravened.
- The rights to apply to all, regardless of sex, race, colour, religion, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, or status.
In times of war or national emergency, some rights may be suspended provided the nation acts within the spirit of the Convention and rectifies any resulting breaches as quickly as possible.
Protocols
Over the years, seventeen additional protocols have been added. Individual nations may decide whether to adopt them. They cover:
- Peaceful enjoyment of possessions
- The right to education
- Free elections held at regular intervals by secret ballot
- Freedom of movement within ECHR nations once lawfully admitted, and a right to freely leave any ECHR nation. (The UK refused to ratify this protocol due to complications at the time relating to ‘British Overseas Nationals’)
- Restriction of the death penalty except in wartime, later followed by a protocol for complete abolition
- ‘Crime and family rights’, covering appeals, victims’ rights, and equality between spouses (The UK has not signed this protocol)
- Protection against discrimination by public authorities (the UK refused to sign due to ‘confusing wording’)
- Individual nations’ rights to engage directly with the European Court of Human Rights (the UK has not signed)
The Human Rights Act
In 1998, the UK passed the Human Rights Act, aligning UK law with the ECHR provisions that it had already endorsed. This was a ‘housekeeping move’ to ensure that the majority of rights stipulated within the ECHR could be dealt with in UK courts rather than being referred to Strasbourg.
To summarise: the UK has signed up to a European convention, and further passed national legislation in an attempt to ensure the rights described above for all inhabitants – regardless of sex, race, colour, religion, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or status.
Leaving the ECHR
In recent years, some right-wing politicians have begun to challenge the UK’s membership. On 29 October this year, parliament voted on Nigel Farage’s proposal to withdraw from the ECHR. It was defeated 154 votes to 96. The vote was unwhipped, allowing members to vote freely and not along party lines.
The question remains: do any of the politicians clamouring for departure really want the UK to stand with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus – the only European nations outside the convention – and to risk having a human rights record resembling theirs?
Perhaps they are misinformed; or perhaps they are following an agenda they have not yet shared with the British people. In the absence of any definitive evidence on their motivations, I’d suggest that, unless we want to live in a totalitarian state, we shouldn’t vote for them.
Those casting their votes in this direction really do need to carefully reflect: if any of the MPs voting ‘aye’ rise to national governance in future, it is likely that they will test British people’s rights to the maximum level that they are able. And we only have to glance across the Atlantic to see what happens when a nation begins to test the democratic, liberal protocols upon which it was founded.
