News

Human Rights Centre Annual Lecture

(3 November 2003)

John Wadham, Deputy Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and former Director of Liberty, will be at the University of Durham at 5.30 p.m. on Friday 7 November to present the second in a series of annual lectures on the theme of human rights.

Hosted by the University’s Human Rights Centre, the lecture is entitled “Deaths in Custody, the role of the Independent Police Complaints Commission and Article 2, European Convention on Human Rights" and will be presented to staff, students and guests from the wider community. The lecture is also open to the general public.

The lecture, including a question and answer session, will take place at 17.30 in Elvet Riverside room 140.

Set up in October 2001, the Durham Human Rights Centre co-ordinates research interests and activities of members of the Law Department across the whole field of the law of human rights. More than half the staff in the department are engaged in such research and have produced numerous books and articles arising from it. Areas of research include the international law of human rights, regional systems such as those of the Council of Europe and the European Union, and the implementation of the Human Rights Act 1998 in this country.

For more information contact:

Gavin Phillipson, Assistant Director of the Centre, Telephone: (0191) 334 2806, or Roger Masterman, Senior Research Associate, (0191) 334 2799.

Notes to Editors

Durham Human Rights Centre - www.durham.ac.uk/Law/HRC.

The Centre was set up in October 2001 with an inaugural lecture by Professor Colin Warbrick and the conferment of Honorary degrees on Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC and the Rt Hon Lord Justice Sedley. Last year, Lord Irvine, then Lord Chancellor, delivered the Inaugural Irvine Human Rights Lecture, entitled “The Human Rights Act Two Years On: An Analysis."

The Centre has a particular concern with the methodology of human rights litigation, in terms of both manner of arguments and reasoning of judgments. The Centre is addressing the human rights aspects of specific issues of public policy, as they arise, and it seeks active engagement with the professions and the judiciary. It was successful in obtaining a grant from the AHRB of £139,000 in order to fund a project over three years on judicial reasoning under the Human Rights Act.

The first of the project’s seminars was held on 31 March 2003 at Allen & Overy, London, before an invited audience of senior judges, practitioners and academics. A paper on the development by the judges of the common law to provide greater protection for privacy under the Human Rights Act was delivered by Gavin Phillipson, lecturer in law at the University Of Durham, and was followed by a response by Lord Justice Sedley. The seminar was chaired by Mr Iain Christie, Barrister at 5 Raymond Buildings, Gray's Inn. The next seminar in the series will be held on 3rd December 2003 at the same venue; Professor Ian Leigh, Co-Director of the Centre, will give a paper on the standard of judicial review under the Human Rights Act; a reply will be given by Lord Justice Keene.

The Centre works with a small Advisory Board, chaired by Mrs Justice Black, whose membership includes representatives of the professions and lawyers from other jurisdictions. It is co-directed by Professor Leigh and Professor Helen Fenwick of the Department of Law.