The Decline of Dualism: The Relationship Between International Human Rights Treaties and the United Kingdom's Domestic Counter-terror Laws

In the first half of the 20th Century, the United Kingdom’s counter-terror laws were \ncouched extremely broadly. Consequently, they bestowed upon the executive \nextraordinarily wide powers with which it could address perceived threats of \nterrorism. In that period of time, the internal affairs of any state were considered \nsacrosanct and beyond the reach of international law. Consequentially, international \nhuman rights law was not a feature of the first half of the 20th Century. \nFollowing the war, however, international human rights law grew steadily, largely \nthrough the propagation of international treaties. As the 20th Century progressed, the \nUnited Kingdom became increasingly involved in international human rights law, \nparticularly by way of the ratification of a number of treaties. Prior to the year 2000, \nnone of these treaties had been directly incorporated into the United Kingdom’s \nmunicipal law. The traditional Dualist understanding of the relationship between \ninternational treaty law and municipal law in the United Kingdom, would hold that \nthese unincorporated human rights treaties would form no part of that state’s domestic \nlaw. \nThis Dualist assumption is called into question, however, by a legislative trend which \nneatly coincides with the United Kingdom’s increased involvement with international \nhuman rights. This trend consists of two elements, firstly, the progressively plethoric \nand specific ways in which the United Kingdom began to define its anti-terror laws. \nThe specificity in which this legislation was set out curtailed the executive’s powers. \nThe second element is that, over time, the United Kingdom’s counter-terror laws \nincreasingly began to include checks and balances on the executive. There is a clear \ncorrelation between these trends and the United Kingdom’s evolving relationship with \ninternational human rights law. That nation’s enmeshment with international human \nrights law from 1945 onwards is undeniably linked with the parallel evolution of its \ndomestic counter-terror laws. \nv \nOne of the grounds on which the status of international law is questioned is that it is \nineffectual. This thesis calls such arguments into question, as it shows that \ninternational human rights treaties have meaningfully impacted on the United \nKingdom’s evolving counter-terror laws and thereby successfully enforced the norms \nthey advocate.

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