Out of sync: The failed translation of international human rights in the creation of the UK Human Rights Act

Abstract

One of the key challenges in the domestic implementation of international human rights norms and standards is to adapt and translate them in such a way that they become locally accepted while retaining their transformative potential. Contrary to the common assumption that such translation is necessary especially in the Global South, this article seeks to demonstrate the usefulness of applying the lens of norm translation also to Western liberal democracies through a case study of the United Kingdom. It examines the creation of the highly controversial UK Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), which gave domestic effect to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in British law, in order to illuminate the reasons for the HRA’s persistent contestation. Based on the reconstruction of the postwar history of British bill of rights campaigns, the article argues that the continuing criticisms of the HRA and its lack of public support are the results of a failed translation process of the ECHR into the British context. The increasing mismatch in the development of the HRA between the far-reaching structural adaptation of European Convention rights to the peculiarities of the British constitution and the absence of their adequate rhetorical translation created a perceived gap in the HRA’s legitimacy and left the Act in a precarious constitutional position.