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Human Rights Unit

Doughty Street Chambers' Human Rights Unit is extensively engaged in research into domestic and international human rights law and practice. We work regularly with human rights organisations, NGOs and academic institutions on collaborative projects.

Doughty Street Chambers employs a Human Rights Officer who provides research support to members of Chambers and produces a human rights bulletin which is freely available. If you would like to receive the human rights bulletin, please email s.parmar@doughtystreet.co.uk.

Human Rights Act Research Project

Doughty Street Chambers hosted the Human Rights Act Research Project (HRARP), an independent research initiative funded to monitor and evaluate the Human Rights Act 1998 and its impact on the enjoyment of human rights in the UK, which concluded its work in September 2002.

The Project worked in association with both the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics, where its Academic Director, Francesca Klug, is a Senior Research Fellow, and the Human Rights Unit of Doughty Street Chambers. The Project's Researchers, Claire O'Brien and Janet Arkinstall, were based at Doughty Street Chambers, alongside Keir Starmer QC, the Legal Director.

HRARP was formally known as the Human Rights Act Research Unit (previously located at King's College, London), which was a successor to the Human Rights Act Incorporation Project. Established by King's College in 1997, the Incorporation Project provided research on an appropriate model for incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. This work strongly influenced the government's legislative proposals for the Human Rights Act 1998, effectively the UK's first modern bill of rights.

The research - published in the European Human Rights Law Review in the form of a continuing Commentary on the development of key concepts under the Act, and Tables summarising reported cases raising HRA, and also as a statistical analysis of HRA cases - sought to assess the way the courts are interpreting and applying HRA. Using indices developed especially for this purpose, the research monitored individual cases in order to evaluate the extent to which HRA is in practice meeting the original aims of the legislation.