Weekly Update 29 July 2022

Weekly Update 29 July 2022

Dear Friends,

This is our last edition before the Weekly Update takes a break for the summer. We wish all Northern Hemisphere readers a respite from the widespread heatwaves, and look forward to bringing you more news from September.

On 12 September, the UK's controversial "Bill of Rights" Bill is due to be debated in the House of Commons. The Bingham Centre already has a programme of work examining this Bill. This week, we are pleased to announce a joint project on international principles for domestic bills of rights.

This project will see us working with the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford and the University of Strathclyde's Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law. The project seeks to identify and examine key principles drawn from international human rights law, which are binding on the UK, against which to measure domestic bills of rights processes such as those currently underway both at UK level and in devolved jurisdictions.

We are also expecting the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which sets out various departures from EU-UK international obligations, to come before the House of Lords. As we describe in this week's Update, Bingham Centre researchers have recently discussed this Bill in video appearances for The Independent and GB News.

The impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the Rule of Law continues to be part of the Bingham Centre's research agenda. This week we bring you news of a White Paper on Rule of Law considerations for policymakers in the development of health technologies from our joint project with researchers in Munich and Singapore. We also share an analysis of citizen jury deliberations on data governance during pandemics, which was undertaken by the Ada Lovelace Institute as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration examining public trust in data-driven responses to public health emergencies, led by the Bingham Centre.

The Bingham Centre's programme on Citizenship and the Rule of Law hosted an internal seminar this week in which our intern Ola Ugwu examined how to alleviate the impact of legal aid restrictions contained in the LASPO Act 2012 on female victims of domestic violence. The Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre, led by the Bingham Centre, has published some reflections on a recent workshop examining how academics and NGOs can collaborate more effectively.

Finally, we bring you some happy news about a team member, in the form of a re:constitution Fellowship awarded to our Maurice Wohl Research Fellow in European Rule of Law, Dr Oliver Garner, to continue his work on reforming EU membership frameworks.

You can read the whole Weekly Update here.