Human rights

While Greek and Roman thinkers were influential in developing ideas such as citizenship, justice and equality, the notion of universal ‘human rights’ (1948), especially those involving one’s ‘identity’, would have struck them as absurd. ‘Identity’ derives from the Latin idem, ‘the same, unchanged’, via the French identité (14th century). The term has been colonised by many different groups who feel that their specific identity – e.g. colour, sexual preferences, personal beliefs – bestows ‘rights’ upon them to behave or be treated in specific ways, whatever anyone else thinks about it, let alone the law of the land.

During the immigration deluge in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seems one Afghan and one Indian national who threw themselves on the mercy of much-besieged Ireland got lost in the shuffle. Fobbed off with €25 vouchers, they were obliged to sometimes sleep rough for two months, without access to food and hygiene and exposed to hardship and fear. They’ve sued the Irish state. Knowing Irish NGOs, I bet they got help. The government has argued that the pressures on Ireland’s hospitality at the time were severe enough to qualify as a force majeure. Their reception centres were full to bursting and there was no room at the inn (and haven’t we heard that before). The Irish High Court sought a ruling from the European Court of Justice.

The facade of Garden Court Chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is reassuringly traditional. The barristers who work there occupy buildings which were once home to the Earl of Sandwich and the Tory prime minister Spencer Perceval. If there were any building in London in which wigs and gowns would seem a natural form of dress, it would be here. But the facade is just that. For behind the pedimented Georgian windows there operates arguably the most radically effective cell of left-wing activists in Britain. Barristers are supposed to adhere to the cab-rank principle: they act for the first client who comes calling.

We should all feel scared to our bones about the persecution of the SAS, soldiers harried through the courts for jobs they did many decades ago. It’s not that the SAS should be allowed to behave like trigger-happy psychos, but as Paul Wood wrote in this magazine before Christmas, Special Forces are now being hounded and punished for simply following orders and conducting operations. And what will we soft sofa-sitters do when no one wants to be a soldier any more? Wood described in particular the plight of 12 soldiers of a Specialist Military Unit (SMU) deployed in Ireland in February 1992 to apprehend a gang of IRA terrorists – the East Tyrone brigade of the Provisional IRA (PIRA).

A Christian-owned bakery harried through the courts for refusing to produce a cake endorsing same-sex marriage and a nurse driven out of her job for wearing a small cross. The two are apparently unconnected but have found themselves in the same news cycle this week. The ‘gay cake case’, as it’s invariably billed, has been trundling along since 2014, when gay rights activist Gareth Lee commissioned Belfast-based Ashers Baking Company to produce a cake featuring the slogan ‘Support Gay Marriage’, the logo of the organisation QueerSpace, and Bert and Ernie, two Sesame Street characters ‘shipped’ as gay by some fans of the children’s TV series.

The second thing I learned about football, after moving to London, is that you can never, ever switch your allegiance. That was unfortunate, because the first thing I discovered was that I liked Newcastle United and had already chosen them as my team. It’s been fairly relentless pain ever since. In 2016, I watched Newcastle get relegated. They bounced back to the Premier League the next season, but it’s been utter mediocrity ever since. I’ve followed them from stadium to stadium, unwavering in my support, cheering on often extremely boring and disappointing football. I like the idea of loyalty in sports; to ditch a team because they depress you would show weakness of character. It doesn’t matter how awful Newcastle are, I thought, nothing could put me off.

Hardly a day goes by without headlines about immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. In the ancient world, movements of people were also very common (state boundaries did not exist), often because war, famine or exile left them with no option. So how did refugees try to win acceptance? In Homer’s world of heroes (c. 700 bc), a man indicated he was harmless by kneeling before his (proposed) helper, perhaps touching the knee, and appealing for aid in the name of Zeus, god of suppliants. He expected a welcome into the household as a guest, and becoming part of that household, or being helped on his way. When Athens was a democratic city state (c.

Meghan Markle hailed her victory in a high court privacy case as a 'comprehensive win' over the Mail on Sunday’s 'illegal and dehumanising practices'. But is that right? If you dig beneath the headlines and read the judge's ruling, it becomes clear that her victory has much to do with a burgeoning expansion of privacy rights based on human rights law. This change in the law has taken place with little fanfare and the victim – the press – generate little sympathy. Yet it is something that should worry any supporter of free speech. Until about twenty years ago, the English courts were pretty robust about celebrities’ privacy suits, then known as actions for breach of confidence.