In this article I argue that an accommodationist approach to Church-State relations provides the most appropriate interpretation of the Irish Constitution. This accommodationist interpretation is however incompatible with Ireland's system of almost exclusively denominational education, in which...

This case study identifies the key human rights obligations (based on the International covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, ICESCR) that are relevant to any analysis of funding for mental health services as an aspect of the realization of the right to health. It discusses these...

Increasingly we find that legislatures are considering human rights issues. This article looks at one area where legislative assemblies may offer a distinctive contribution to human rights protection, when exercising their historic role in matters of finance and budgets. The purpose of this...

This chapter examines a necessarily select list of Article 14 (the prohibition of discrimination) jurisprudence involving ethnic minorities, most notably the Roma minority in post-Communist countries before the European Court of Human Rights (the Court). The aim is to identify to what extent, if...

This paper examines the approach of the Irish courts to social and economic rights, and proposes using the equality doctrine to provide indirect protection for these rights. The papers draws on comparative material from Canada, South Africa, the US and the European convention on Human Rights to...

Human rights law proclaims that all persons are the same, and have the same rights. Yet this revolutionary claim, which has overturned political regimes and confounded conventions, has itself been criticised. The criticisms have often come from a non-legal disciplinary background - anthropology,...

This document is a review of a selection of existing guidance and case studies on economic and social rights (ESR) budget analysis. While the initial purpose of the document was to inform the development of the QUB Budget Analysis project’s work, it also serves as an overview of previous work...

This research report for the Changing Aging Partnership examines Northern Ireland's age discrimination laws in a comparative focus. It notes in particular that the Northern Irish approach to age discrimination is increasingly unusual. In particular the report notes that, among the comparators...

There are two major public policy objectives in Northern Ireland. One is the equality agenda designed to deliver the promise in the Good Friday Agreement of equality and parity of esteem for the two main communities and for members of other social and ethnic groups. The other is the Shared...