Summaria Iuridica

Blackwell, Michael. Indeterminacy, disagreement and the Human Rights Act: an empirical study of litigation in the UK House of Lords and Supreme Court 1997–2017 // The Modern Law Review. Vol. 83 (2020), issue 2, p. 285-320.

This article explores the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on the decision making of the House of Lords (UKHL) and the UK Supreme Court (UKSC). How does Convention rights content vary across areas of law in the UKHL/UKSC? Are some judges more likely than others to engage in Convention rights discourse? Is judicial disagreement more common in cases with higher levels of Convention rights discourse? A robust method of answering questions of this nature is developed and applied to decisions of the UKHL/UKSC, showing that the Convention rights content of decisions has varied over time and over substantive areas of law. [---]