Scotland is taking steps to incorporate more of our international human rights treaties directly into Scots law. For the first time, this will embed these rights into decision-making and make them enforceable. After years of campaigning by children and young people, the UNCRC Incorporation (Scotland) Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament in December 2023. Now, the Scottish Government will introduce a wider Human Rights Incorporation Bill to Parliament by June this year.

However, constraints on what the Scottish Parliament can do within devolution have limited these Bills from going as far as many of us had hoped, and had been the intention. The UNCRC Act’s scope is much narrower than planned – not because of rights per se, but because of devolution. The equal opportunities reservation is also limiting the ambition of the wider Human Rights Bill.

These devolution limitation ‘problems’ also potentially impact progressing human rights in Wales and Northern Ireland.

Join this expert webinar on 18th April, 15.00 - 16.30, to hear calls for the next UK Government to urgently amend devolution legislation to ensure that the devolved nations/jurisdictions can go as far as possible to bring all of our human rights closer to home.

This webinar will also launch a paper authored by Professor Aileen McHarg for the Human Rights Consortium Scotland on implications of the UNCRC Supreme Court ruling on the wider Scottish Human Rights bill. This paper really helpfully sets out options to mitigate and address these devolution limitations – including by amending the Scotland Act.

You can sign up here.

This event is organised in partnership with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA), the Wales Governance Centre and Human Rights Consortium in Northern Ireland.