The United Kingdom is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), along with every other member of the Council of Europe. The ECHR is an international treaty that sets out rights that all signatories are pledged to uphold and protect. These include the right to life (Article 2), the right to a fair trial (Article 6), the right to freedom of expression (Article 10), the right to freedom of assembly (Article 11), the right to freedom of association (Article 11), the right to freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3) and the right to respect for private and family life (Article 8).
All these rights are guaranteed by the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998, which enshrines them in UK law.
The UK has also ratified several other international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The UK government has passed laws guaranteeing certain civil and political rights. They can only be limited in exceptional circumstances. In addition to this long list of legal recognition, it’s worth remembering that most human rights are also protected by customary international law – the rules that have developed over time from our common heritage of shared principles and beliefs about how societies should be governed.
