European Convention on Human Rights

We thank Alison MacDonald for her illuminating and extremely useful perspective on the developments in the approach of the British courts to adjudication based on international law. In many respects the changing attitude toward international law,  headed by the House of Lords under the unmistakable leadership of Lord Bingham, has provided an example for other national courts (NCs) to follow, starting in 2004 with the so-called Belmarsh Detainees judgment, that stunning 8-1 majority declaration that found the detention of foreign suspected terrorists incompatible with the Human Rights Act.  Such leadership is critical to change the status quo not only within a jurisdiction but also regionally and perhaps even globally (and no doubt, as MacDonald suggests, it facilitated a mutually reinforcing relationship between the House of Lords and the ECtHR). Other useful observations of MacDonald's that are worth highlighting include the reference to the Court of Appeal's blend of interpretive biases as leading - as often is the case - to conceptual confusion (in this case between customary and conventional international law); the…