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Sofia Gonzalez De Aguinaga
Research Fellow in Business, ESG & Modern Slavery
Biography Dr Sofia Gonzalez is a Research Fellow in Business, ESG & Modern Slavery and joined BIICL in February 2022. She leads the research work strand on Business and Modern Slavery of the Bingham Centre for the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC). She is also developing a relevant research programme on Modern Slavery and businesses' ESG responsibilities for the Bingham Centre's Business Network. Before joining BIICL she worked as a consultant for the Walk…
BUSINESS+1Update 21 October 2022
21st October 2022
Image: Prime Minister Liz Truss announcing her resignation (Photo by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Dear Friends, After a chaotic week in Westminster that ended with Liz Truss' resignation, the UK looks set to have its third Prime Minister in two months. It remains unclear who will succeed Truss, but the Bingham Centre will be scrutinising any new Government's legislative programme and actions insofar as they have implications…
EUROPE+3Weekly Update 30 September 2022
30th September 2022
Weekly Update 30 September 2022 Dear Friends, Secret laws violate the Rule of Law, sowing fear and chaos even in authoritarian societies. This was dramatically illustrated last week by President Putin's conscription decree to mobilise new forces for the war in Ukraine, as the category of people subject to conscription was reportedly contained in a secret paragraph. The regime claimed that it was mobilising only reservists and people with specialised military skills. However, flights…
JUSTICE SYSTEMS+2Weekly Update 23 September 2022
23rd September 2022
Weekly Update 23 September 2022 Dear Friends, Welcome back to the Bingham Centre's Weekly Update, which resumes this week after a summer break. Much has changed over this period. The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who came to define the modern UK monarchy during her 70 years on the throne, has been widely mourned amid reflection on her extraordinary public service. The Queen performed the role of constitutional sovereign of the UK and other realms, as well as Head of the wider Commonwealth,…
EUROPE+2Weekly Update 29 July 2022
29th 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…
CITIZENSHIP+5Weekly Update 22 July 2022
22nd July 2022
Weekly Update 22 July 2022 Dear Friends, This week has seen the contest to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party take most of the headlines. Voting amongst Tory MPs has reduced the field down to Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Elizabeth Truss, the current Foreign Secretary. As was the case in 2019, the next Prime Minister will now be decided by a subset of the general electorate - members of the ruling Conservative Party. Voting has opened, and…
MODERN SLAVERY+1Weekly Update 15 July 2022
15th July 2022
Weekly Update 15 July 2022 Dear Friends, Parliamentary business slowed down markedly this week, as the Conservative Party leadership contest took centre stage. Disappointingly, two Cabinet ministers withdrew from committee appearances in which they were likely to have been questioned on Rule of Law issues: Home Secretary Priti Patel would have faced questions from the Home Affairs Committee about her controversial policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, while Justice Secretary Dominic…
MODERN SLAVERY+3Weekly Update 8 July 2022
8th July 2022
Weekly Update 08 July 2022 Dear Friends, How will the turmoil at the highest levels of the UK Government this week affect the Rule of Law? A Conservative Party leadership election will soon be held, following scandal-hit Prime Minister Boris Johnson's promise to step down. One of the main topics that leadership candidates will have to address is the restoration of standards in public life, and hopefully this will bring some attention to Rule of Law issues. The former Health Secretary Sajid…
EUROPE+2Weekly Update 01 July 2022
1st July 2022
Weekly Update 01 July 2022 Dear Friends, Public debate about the role of courts in protecting human rights has become increasingly bitter in both the UK and the USA in recent weeks. A particular approach to the interpretation of rights guarantees - the "living instrument" doctrine, which judges use to interpret rights in the light of contemporary social norms -has come under fire in both countries. In the UK, the Government argues that it has led the Strasbourg Court to be too generous in…
BUSINESS+5Weekly Update 24 June 2022
24th June 2022
Weekly Update 24 June 2022 Dear Friends, The UK Government published its Bill of Rights Bill this week. We are still analysing the substantive contents of this Bill, which, if enacted, would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) and replace it with a so-called "Bill of Rights". The Bill has profound implications for the effective protection of rights under the European Convention on Human Rights in UK law and for the devolution settlement, for which protection of Convention rights is…
CITIZENSHIP+2Weekly Update 17 June 2022
17th June 2022
Weekly Update 17 June 2022 Dear Friends, International law is the subject of one of the eight Rule of Law principles in Tom Bingham's The Rule of Law (2010). Lord Bingham argued that the Rule of Law "requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international law as in national law". He devoted a chapter of his book to this principle, in which the most controversial issue discussed was the 2003 Iraq war, perhaps reflecting the fact that the UK's basis for participating in the…
EUROPE+2Weekly Update 20 May 2022
20th May 2022
Weekly Update 20 May 2022 Dear Friends, On Tuesday, the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, announced to the House of Commons that the UK Government would be introducing legislation to make changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol. The United Kingdom seems to be going outside of the framework provided by the Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol to resolve difficulties in a move reminiscent of the UK Internal Market Bill clauses from 2020, which were widely criticised for undermining the Rule…
CITIZENSHIP+1Weekly Update 13 May 2022
13th May 2022
Weekly Update 13 May 2022 Dear Friends, The UK Government's legislative programme for 2022-2023 was announced in the Queen's Speech in Parliament on Tuesday. In accordance with tradition the speech was written by the Government and it was read on this occasion by Prince Charles. It is curious that the speech did not explicitly mention the Government's plans to legislate contrary to the Northern Ireland Protocol to the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement. Perhaps this was a tactful omission which…
EUROPE+4Weekly Update 29 April 2022
29th April 2022
Weekly Update 29 April 2022 Dear Friends, What is the state of the Rule of Law in Europe today, and what can be done to strengthen it? This question has become ever more important - even for mainstream politicians - in the context of the war in Ukraine, increasingly bitter disputes about democratic "backsliding", and a growing body of regional Rule of Law standards and monitoring mechanisms. For some, the European Rule of Law glass is half-full, while others insist that it is half-empty. This…
CITIZENSHIP+4Weekly Update 8 April 2022
8th April 2022
Weekly Update 8 April 2022 Dear Friends, On Sunday 3 April, Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party won the Hungarian parliamentary elections, with an increased share of the popular vote (54%). This ensured that it would retain a two-thirds "super-majority" in the legislature, and with it the ability to amend the Hungarian constitution. The victory means a fourth straight term as Prime Minister for Orbán, and the continuation of his project of "illiberal democracy" in opposition to the broad European…
DIGITAL AGE+5Weekly Update 18 March 2022
18th March 2022
Weekly Update 18 March 2022 Dear Friends, In a development with truly momentous implications for the post-War European architecture designed to uphold the Rule of Law, democracy, and human rights across the continent, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe this week. Following an extraordinary debate in the Parliamentary Assembly, culminating in an Opinion that Russia should cease to be a member of the organisation set up after World War II "to achieve a greater unity between…
DIGITAL AGE+3Weekly Update 11 March 2022
11th March 2022
Weekly Update 11 March 2022 Dear Friends, Last week, we reported on an initiative to establish a special tribunal on the crime of aggression in relation to Ukraine. The creation of such a tribunal would enable the international Rule of Law to be upheld by filling the gap which currently exists in the machinery for ensuring that the crime of aggression on the territory of Ukraine does not go unpunished. The establishment of a special criminal tribunal continues to attract support from…
CITIZENSHIP+3Weekly Update 11 February 2022
11th February 2022
Weekly Update 11 February 2022 Dear Friends, Rule of Law arguments continue to make the headlines. In a wide-ranging lecture entitled 'In democracy we trust?' to the Institute of Government on Thursday, the former Prime Minister Sir John Major stated that "The Prime Minister and our present Government not only challenge the law, but also seem to believe that they - and they alone - need not obey the rules". The continuing fallout from the "partygate" revelations for trust in the Government…
CITIZENSHIP+4Weekly Update 4 February 2022
4th February 2022
Weekly Update 4 February 2022 Dear Friends, This week we learnt from the Gray inquiry update that police are investigating 12 gatherings in or around the UK Prime Minister's offices at 10 Downing Street for possible breaches of Coronavirus regulations. The intense public interest in 'partygate' has shown how much the Rule of Law matters to people. However, threats to the Rule of Law are not always so well publicised or widely understood. In this week's Update, we bring you news of our…
COVID-19+3Weekly Update 28 January 2022
28th January 2022
Weekly Update 28 January 2022 Dear Friends, "Nobody is above the law. This is important for ensuring the necessary degree of trust between the public and government." These are the words of former Prime Minister Theresa May, as quoted this week by a local newspaper in her Maidenhead constituency. This week, the Metropolitan Police announced a criminal investigation into 'partygate', as the scandal about alleged breaches of Coronavirus regulations by politicians and public officials at…
COVID-19+3Weekly Update 17 December 2021
17th December 2021
Weekly Update 17 December 2021 Dear Friends, It has been a dramatic week. The UK Government's cavalier attitude to the Rule of Law was partly responsible for the collapse in the Prime Minister's political authority over his own MPs on Tuesday, as almost 100 of them voted against the latest Coronavirus measures, amidst mounting anxiety that the system for making such significant laws in a hurry is no longer fit for purpose. And the growing sense that the Government considers itself above…
CITIZENSHIP+8Weekly Update 10 December 2021
10th December 2021
Weekly Update 10 December 2021 Dear Friends, As England enters 'Plan B' restrictions in response to the Omicron COVID-19 variant, reports of a Christmas party at Downing Street last year when London was under 'Tier 3' restrictions on indoor gatherings have prompted commentators to ask a fundamental Rule of Law question: is there one rule for No 10 and another for the rest of the country? The affair is the latest in a string of events, which have been analysed by the Bingham Centre since…
EUROPE+2Weekly Update 3 December 2021
3rd December 2021
Weekly Update 3 December 2021 Dear Friends, This week the Bingham Centre published a set of papers from our year-long research project on data-driven responses to public health emergencies. In a week where the Omicron variant of Coronavirus has dominated news headlines, we summarise the main findings of this project. This Update also brings news of our current work on scrutiny of UK COVID-19 legislation, and a publication on the regulation of artificial intelligence and automated decision-making…
COVID-19+3Weekly Update 15 October 2021
15th October 2021
Weekly Update 15 October 2021 Dear Friends, Rule of Law principles provide a valuable framework for scrutiny of legislation, policy and practice, whether the context is emergencies such as the Coronavirus pandemic, or longstanding challenges facing society. This week, we bring you news of our engagement with UK Coronavirus legislation, Black History Month and the UK legal profession, European debates about rebuilding the Rule of Law in illiberal democracies and reviewing counter-terrorism…
CITIZENSHIP+4Weekly Update 8 October 2021
8th October 2021
Weekly Update 8 October 2021 Dear Friends, The Coronavirus pandemic has severely tested all branches of Government. On the Parliamentary front, we bring you news of our joint webinar on Parliamentary Review of the Coronavirus Act 2020: Scrutiny Delayed, or Scrutiny Denied?, which will take place on 14th October, in the run-up to a debate in which Parliament must decide on the future of this far-reaching Act. The Executive branch of Government, and new agencies such as NHS Test and Trace,…
CITIZENSHIP+3Weekly Update 1 October 2021
1st October 2021
Weekly Update 1 October 2021 Dear Friends, The Bingham Centre welcomes the initiative of the Scottish Government in setting out proposals to establish a public inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland. In this week's Update we share our submission on the scope of the Scottish inquiry, in which we emphasised that it should examine Rule of Law issues. We also bring you news of an inquiry submission on Closed Material Procedures, our public engagement activities in schools,…
CITIZENSHIP+4Weekly Update 24 September 2021
24th September 2021
Weekly Update 24 September 2021 Dear Friends, It is with great sadness that we learnt this week of the death of Jonathan Cooper OBE, a renowned advocate for human rights worldwide and a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers. Among his many roles, Jonathan co-founded the Human Dignity Trust, which uses law to defend LGBT rights globally, and served as the first Director of Training at the Bingham Centre during 2011-2012. His pioneering Rule of Law training programmes reached audiences from…
COVID-19+1Weekly Update 17 September 2021
17th September 2021
Weekly Update 17 September 2021 Dear Friends, This is our first Update since the summer break. As the UK prepares to host the COP26 Climate Conference in November, we are mindful that the Rule of Law has a part to play in tackling the planet-wide problems caused by human climate change. Combatting and mitigating the climate crisis requires more than bold ideas. It also requires effective forms of accountability, to ensure that agreed actions are implemented and sustained. In other words,…
EUROPE+2