Professor Brice Dickson:

My analysis of the ways in which human rights are currently protected in the two parts of Ireland shows that people living in Northern Ireland should have little to fear from a united or shared Ireland, provided that two key principles are adhered to during the unification process. First, there should be no regression in the way people living in the North have their human rights protected at present. Second, everyone living in a united Ireland should have their human rights protected to the same extent. In short, there should be a levelling-up approach. This would be in line with the promise made by the Irish Government in the Good Friday Agreement, whereby it will bring forward measures to ensure at least an equivalent level of protection of human rights as pertains in Northern Ireland.

At present, human rights in Northern Ireland are principally protected under the common law and the UK's Human Rights Act 1998, while in Ireland they are principally protected under the 1937 Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003, which is similar but not identical to the UK's Act. In Northern Ireland, higher courts can declare secondary legislation to be invalid, if it is incompatible with the European convention. In Ireland, higher courts can declare any legislation or common law rule to be invalid if it is repugnant to the Constitution, but they cannot declare any legislation to be invalid merely because it is incompatible with the European convention.

In practice, the extent of human rights protection in Ireland is largely comparable to that in Northern Ireland, although Ireland's membership of the EU ensures that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights plays a greater part there than in the North. Moreover, Northern Ireland has weaker anti-discrimination laws then Ireland or the rest of the UK. Both jurisdictions have statutory human rights commissions to advise their respective governments and in both jurisdictions social and economic rights are less well protected than civil and political rights.

In a united Ireland, the Government would be obliged under customary international law to extend to people in the North the rights already conferred on people in the South under treaties and protocols ratified by Ireland. That would mean extending the Istanbul Convention on domestic violence and violence against women, four of the UN's complaints systems and one of the Council of Europe's complaints systems. Likewise, unless expressly provided for in the unification treaty, people in the North would lose out on the protection they currently enjoy under two UN protocols, one on torture and the other on some children's rights, under the UN complaints system on disability issues, and under the European charter on languages.