HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

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Legal 500

 

The past decade has seen an enormous growth in human rights litigation, both in our domestic courts and in other European courts, as well as before the Court of First Instance, European Court of Justice, European Court of Human Rights and international tribunals. Members of Monckton Chambers have been at the heart of this expansion.

This case-driven development of human rights law is based on fundamental rights standards which are common to the domestic legal systems throughout Europe and which should be recognised by national courts on the strength of EU and European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) case law.  These are the fields in which members have established expertise. In consequence, human rights law plays an increasingly important role within Chambers' core areas of commercial and regulatory litigation and Chambers has particular expertise in the protection of commercial interests through international human rights proceedings.

 

Specific areas of expertise include:

  • Commercial law
  • Competition law
  • Criminal procedure and law enforcement
  • Data protection and freedom of information
  • Financial services regulation
  • Immigration
  • International mutual assistance
  • Regulation of non-governmental organisations
  • Tax

 

Since the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), human rights issues can be litigated in any and every court and tribunal and, as the new 'Interpretation Act', the HRA affects the construction of all legislation, old and new.  We have acted in cases with a human rights dimension before a range of administrative tribunals, magistrates' courts, and all of the domestic higher courts.

Furthermore, since the fundamental rights protected by EU law as well as the ECHR are of general application and trump national law, members have extensive experience of providing expert input in 'foreign' disputes and in litigating cases arising from all over Europe before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Court of First Instance and European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, and the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva. We also advise governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations on the implementation of human rights standards and contribute to the elaboration of new human rights standards by international organisations.

 

Notable cases include (please click on the links for details):


PUBLICATIONS

Members of Monckton Chambers lecture and write widely on the topic of human rights law. Chambers numbers visiting professors and authors of major articles, books and reports amongst its members, including authors, editors and contributors to:  Gordon & Ward, Judicial Review and the Human Rights Act (2000);  Gordon, Ward & Eicke, The Strasbourg Case Law - Leading Cases from the European Human Rights Reports (2001);  Local Authorities and Human Rights (ed. Drabble et al.);  International Human Rights Law and non-governmental organisations', (J-F Flauss (ed), 2005);  The Institutions and Terms of Turkish Criminal Proceedings in light of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (with S Cengiz et al, 2008) and Access to Justice for Migrants and Asylum-Seekers in Europe, (CDCJ (2009) 2), (Council of Europe, 2009).

 

PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS

Members are the editors or sit on the editorial boards of Butterworths Human Rights Cases, Commonwealth Human Rights Law Digest and Human Rights Law Reports. They also sit on the International Law Association's Human Rights Law and Practice Committee, the Board of Interights and the Scientific Committee of the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency.