Alice-Mary Higgins
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“We are signing up to be customers of liquefied natural gas - potentially fracked gas, potentially coming from a country that is busily fighting against climate action and trying to fast-track our route to destruction. We will be doing that every year in the budget and every day in the terminal.”
“We are not getting solid measures on those safeguards. The other safeguards we have, which are our planning laws and climate laws, are being either fast-tracked or suspended. We are suspending the existing safeguards and are not putting hard safeguards into this Bill, and we are being asked to go on faith.”
“Nonetheless, I have some practical questions. We need a little more on what the emergency is because it is not sufficient to say we will deal with it then. The emergency is the ground on which the Minister of State is asking for the normal planning process and the climate Act to be suspended. We need to know what the emergency is.”
“It should happen only after all relevant market-based measures have been implemented. Those market measures should include the demand-reduction strategies that are eligible under N-1, including demand reduction by large energy users, and should have been implemented, exhausted and proven insufficient.”
“Sure there is detail in it but the key issue is that what he is asking of the Oireachtas, which is to agree to it being built, is on the argument of there being an emergency. It should be very clear what the emergency is. I mentioned previously that the committee said our N-1 obligations could be met through demand management.”
“It comes from real places with real communities that are immediately and terribly impacted by fracking, as well as having an impact on the atmosphere that surrounds our beautiful planet, which we are destroying. As the Minister of State said, it impacts not just on business but on the liveability of large portions of this planet.”
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“Are we just going to be watching a discussion between Iran and the United States and waiting to see what comes out of that? Are Europe and Ireland going to start talking explicitly about Lebanon and putting explicit and direct pressure on Israel in relation to that matter? I would like that to be a debate. I am very proud and happy to be one of the co-signers of the motion in relation to the Catalpa . The story of the Catalpa is one that came to my attention when a wonderful actor, theatre maker and activist, Donal O'Kelly, produced a one-man production, "Catalpa", which told the story crossing multiple oceans and multiple characters. It is an extraordinary story of solidarity across oceans between those who have a similar goal in terms of freedom and a vision for humanity and solidarity. It is an extremely important episode in history.”
“I join in the expressions of condolence on the death of Brian O'Shea. We are having a discussion on the fuel protest, which has taken centre stage to the extent that some of what we are seeing with the ongoing war is falling from attention sometimes. I request that we have a debate specifically on Lebanon in this House. In Lebanon, which is a sovereign state, over 1.2 million people have been displaced, 2,000 people have been killed and 100 bombs were dropped in a ten-minute period. Israel has announced that it does not regard it as part of any ceasefire. Where is Europe on this? Are we still saying that the EU-Israel association agreement, which we did not suspend but should have suspended over Gaza, is still under way? Are we still acting as if this is normal?”
“It is a moment, but it is a moment at the beginning of the 21st century. It is a crisis of conscience. The question will be whether we learned the lessons from the 20th century when we moved away from colonialism and put in place human rights instruments, learning about the idea of all human rights? Are we going to forget what we learned in the 20th century and fail to address the challenges of the 21st century, which are the climate crisis, conflict and the undermining of international law, and are we going to instead try to suggest that this small group of approximately 1 million in total in Europe is the problem? It is that some of those impacted have reached our shores in Europe is what is being framed as a crisis. It is our crisis. It is a crisis of conscience that we need to be stepping up to.”
“The fact is that we are going to see an increasing number of wars and military actions and more conflict than ever before. Very large areas of the world are becoming physically uninhabitable as a result of the acceleration of climate change. The crisis lies in conflict and in the failure to take meaningful action in respect of conflict. It is, there is a leaning into it with a rush towards a new arms race that everybody wants in on. There is a failure to deliver on climate because it has dropped to the bottom of the political agenda. The natural outcome, if you make the world unlivable, if you lean into conflict and if you allow military actions, illegal occupations and a sense that might is right, will be displacement, yet that consequence is what is being framed as a crisis.”
“Any time the idea of entering a building or a dwelling without a warrant came up, it became something of a constitutional issue. Yet, we are seeing very wide powers being granted that will allow people to enter a premises if they have reasonable cause to suspect that a person who is the subject of a deportation order may be present. Are people going to be accused of sheltering persons in their attics or garages? Any time the idea of entering buildings without warrants has come up previously, it has been the subject of very in-depth debate. This is an example of a significant provision that will be the subject of almost no debate. The Minister stated that migration is one of the defining issues of the 21st century. International displacement is one of those issues.”
“However, I accept the Minister's comments to the effect that he believes that it is only to be applied in the case of those who are applicants. Of course,the question that arises relates to how it is worded in the context of confirming identity and nationality. Is it also to confirm if someone is an applicant? One of the phrases used in this regard relates to someone being deemed to be an applicant. I say this in the context that we are seeing some extraordinary shifts taking place with regard to things that were seen as basic powers. There are powers being granted that we are not going to have the opportunity to discuss. For example, immigration officers and gardaí are being given the power to enter homes and premise without warrants. I have been in the Oireachtas for three terms.”
“That is an example of the public interest - the Minister did not get to come in on the phrasing in that regard - and public policy being used in that regard. In many cases, it would be in the public interest for persons who are relying on medication to be able to receive it until the point where they leave State, regardless of whether they are entitled to it. It is not a privilege. However, in cases relating to the public interest, it is the interests of the public, our health system and those who may be affected if persons who need medication have it while they are in the State. There is an argument in that regard. That would be if we are applying a public interest frame versus a public policy frame. We will see how this unfolds. The way it is worded gives rise to some ambiguity.”
“The Minister made the point that they would get that if they were being told at the International Protection Office, but I make the point that the Bill allows for them to be told by a large number of individuals, not necessarily at an international protection office.”
“What would be the position on consideration by an appeals tribunal? What kind of information does the Minister plan not to allow as evidence by our courts system or an appeals tribunal within the immigration system? These are very discretionary powers and they do not have a clear definition. Public policy can mean anything and this is a serious problem. Amendment No. 33 is the one I have already spoken about. It relates to a matter we discussed previously, namely, the need to inform a person in danger of committing an offence if they do not go to a screening centre in a language they can understand.”
“Do we come up with and apply a few new, quick, hard public policies that look tough, have them impact on people's lives and say we are changing family reunification, as we see the Bill is doing? Do we have grounds not to issue travel documents and to disregard deportation exemptions? This is an area that really brings the ECHR into question. Section 180 alludes to not allowing the submission of evidence to an appeals tribunal. We can decide the legal safeguard of an appeals tribunal is not in accordance with public policy. Where a lawfully resident individual who is not an applicant for asylum is asked to go to a screening centre and told he or she has been found against because he or she is on Eurodac, can the Minister decline, on public policy grounds, information on how that Eurodac decision or information or opinion was arrived at?”
“Section 193 relates to the grounds on which the Minister may decide not to permit family reunification and section 196 relates to the grounds on which the Minister may decide not to issue a travel document. Section 206 relates to the power to disregard an exemption a person may have to being deported, and section 180 to not allowing the submission of evidence to an appeals tribunal. The Minister can decide, on public policy grounds, not to allow family reunification. This is where we find the danger we heard about earlier, related to the idea of chasing the right. If a poll states an extreme right-wing candidate is running in a by-election, does one chase that?”
“The President in the United States can say he is really worried about Somali people, does not like them and will be very prejudiced against them, effectively wanting them to be taken in and given a hard time. Public policy can literally be anything. It is a vague, wide-ranging term. It is not law that a government proposes and puts to the test of the Oireachtas, or fast-tracks in the Oireachtas, as in this case, nor is it the public interest, which involves precedent, balance and the courts. Rather, it is potentially the whim of any Minister for justice, although maybe not the current one. A Minister may say a new policy is this or that. These are the grounds on which people can be forced to go to a screening centre.”
“We have heard about balancing things in the public interest, but the grounds on which a legally resident person who is not necessarily an asylum applicant can be detained and required to go to a screening centre, under threat of an offence, are in the interest of public policy; however, public policy is not the same as the public interest. In respect of many laws, we talk about the public interest, where it may apply and where there is precedent. The courts determine it and balance many factors when deciding on it. Public policy is saying, "We want to". It can literally involve the Cabinet saying it has decided something is its new policy. It can change from not liking liquified natural gas to liking it as a matter of public policy.”
“It allows for a situation whereby immigration officers, potentially private or contracted, can detain anybody who is not an Irish citizen in a screening centre while being checked. What a tool of intimidation that is. We see it in the United States. Parks where families would always have gone on picnics or had birthday parties are now kind of empty at the weekends because people are afraid. People become afraid to be out and, even though lawfully resident, to participate in public life. They feel vulnerable to being snatched or subjected to a process such as that in a screening centre. Crucially, the grounds are not the public interest.”
“Those who may be lawfully resident here on, say, a working visa, student visa or another permit, and who may be on their route to citizenship, can be directed to travel to a screening centre also. The Government has suggested it is only about international protection, but the fact that other kinds of people are included is concerning. This is the kind of thing we have seen in the United States in the form of fishing expeditions, whereby whole groups of people are checked for identity and nationality, even though they have already been through the protection system or another part of the immigration system and are lawfully resident. That is the kind of thing that creates fear and allows for profiling.”
“It does not specify that that direction would be adhered to in the International Protection Office or under the remit of a support structure where language, etc., would be catered for. It allows for civil servants, immigration officers or gardaí to give the direction in a number of situations. Specifically, and this is something that does not fit the narrative we have been given, it relates to a lawfully resident person who is already registered under the Immigration Act. When someone arrives, it is reasonable that we would ask them to go to the screening centre, as we have heard, but the Bill allows for a person already lawfully resident under the Immigration Act, or someone not entering the application process for international protection, to be directed to go to a centre.”
“We have had examples of heart attacks and pregnant women being moved in their third trimester. We may not come to amendment No. 105, which relates to treatment during transfers or deportation. Moving on to amendment No. 30, the amendment deletes the subsection that allows a civil servant, immigration officer or garda to issue a direction. The Minister said the international protection office would be getting this information. This is where we are trying to put in a requirement that those who are told they must attend would be informed of that in a language they can reasonably be expected to understand. The Minister correctly pointed out that appropriate language expertise is available at the International Protection Office. Our concern is that the Bill allows for quite a lot of people to give that direction.”
“To get back to what the Minister said and the simple question of an account being different, we know that, in the case of certain crimes and offences that people have experienced, it is a trauma response to give a different account at first, perhaps because they have come from an authoritarian state and are used to guarding and being protective of certain information. The information may then expand or change. They may be seeking to protect others at a given point of contact. You need a whole range of expertise to unpack and engage with the healthcare needs and application process of persons who have experienced significant violence and trauma in the past. Again, we are not going to get to speak to any of that. There is also the issue of transfers at short notice.”
“This is an example of the practicalities of how this works out for the individual human cases. Is a person who needs medication but has been told they are due to be deported to be without medication for the period of time they are waiting? What is the consequence of that for them? For the persons who will have key responsibilities in relation to those who have experienced rape, torture, violence and so on, there are no mechanisms for them to get expertise and training to identify issues.”
“We have had to speak to fundamental issues. That is what Second Stage is for. We should not all have to try to speak to a series of fundamental issues as if we were on a Second Stage debate because we are being precluded from dealing with them in sequence and in proper order. That was a really important amendment because the healthcare entitlement introduced in section 76 has a lot of gaps. Again, there are questions as to who would be performing the functions of healthcare professionals under this provision. A wide range of individuals are allowed for outside of registered doctors and nurses and there is a very worrying component within section 70 of the Bill, which explicitly excludes persons subject to a deportation order from healthcare entitlements. There is also no question of training in terms of the Department of Health.”
“This relates to the same section as amendment No. 29, which has been ruled out of order. When Committee Stage is guillotined and it is made impossible to speak to sections, including sections to which the Government proposed very large amendments at a late stage, we are told that, because these issues did not arise on Committee Stage, they cannot be raised on Report Stage. It again points to a really fundamental undermining of the democratic process when we curtail debate at a key point. I would also say that I did speak to this issue, the issue of healthcare professionals. I did speak about healthcare. It was something that I named. I did not get to speak to my amendments on it because we did not get to speak to approximately 200 amendments, but I did speak about the issue. That is what we have all had to do today.”
“I move amendment No. 28: In page 33, between lines 9 and 10, to insert the following: “(8) Biometric data taken under this Chapter shall not be used as grounds to conduct an age assessment under section 55 .”.”
“We all know that it is the compulsory thing that is going to happen to everybody who lands, but we do not know what exactly it will be checked against. Will it just be a list of individual names because one of the things it will check for is nationality? Will it just be around checking if an individual is in the Eurodac system? Will that be its sole purpose? Will it be used to check or assess anything else? What weighting will it be given, not just in the process, but previous to and around the process? Those are the questions that we legitimately have about what is a new system.”
“Is there a danger of that biometric data being used when officials are deciding what a 21-year-old looks like, or a 16-year-old, or an 18-year-old? The Minister may shake his head, but we do not know. This a new provision that has been brought in. It is a new system using new technologies and we are absolutely entitled to seek assurances as to the potential ways that it might be used. The fact that an age assessment may not just be used as a last resort, as was said, but can be triggered quite broadly under the Bill, I am concerned that biometric data could trigger an age assessment. Will the Minister clarify that as it would be useful? There is a sense that this is a bit of a black box in terms of what is going to happen with the Eurodac system.”
“What rights do people have to interrogate the mechanisms of how it is being assessed? Could we have situations where people are detained having given their information and gone through the Eurodac system because they do not agree with what it has said in relation to them? In terms of the age assessment piece, the Minister described how the data is to be taken, and we know that the guardians with the 30 children they are meant to be minding will be there. I do not think someone can advocate for the child not do it. However, there is a concern because in the Bill age assessment is triggered by the concerns of an official. There are very broad grounds that can trigger an age assessment. One thing that we are concerned about is that is does not say that the biometric data will solely be just about checking matches with the Eurodac system.”
“They are potentially in a room or a screening centre and unable to leave it because there is a dispute about the messages coming from the Eurodac system. We could have a situation where people are detained after they have co-operated, given their biometric data and gone through the system. That could create pressure on people and intimidate them. It is not clear what the weighting of that biometric data is. The Minister says that we should be able to check the system, but what is the weighting given to the data that comes from the Eurodac system? I have spoken to the Minister about this before. He said that it will come up as an applicant goes through the immigration system as normal, but can it be challenged? Can someone appeal a decision? Is the data treated as the sole fact?”
“What it actually refers to is detention for the purposes of confirming somebody's identity or nationality. It does not refer to whether an applicant was willing to go a screening centre or to provide biometric data. Again, whether this is a necessary and proportionate test can also be questioned. It actually says for the purposes of confirming somebody's identity or nationality. The Bill provides for scenarios where somebody maybe co-operates and then gets told that the Eurodac system thinks they may be four people already in the system, or that it thinks it is a certain person, and they say they are not. It provides for the detention of that person and the kinds of pressure that come from being in a situation where someone is detained and cannot leave.”
“I will let the Minister answer that question in due course. It does point to another question. I have been referring to reports and they include reports from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the United States, from the University of Essex in the UK and from data protection systems within the UK. The Minister talked about how the technology has been improving as it goes along, but this is the same key point I mentioned in terms of the testing on vulnerable persons or using them as guinea pigs. On our specific amendments, the Bill as it is set out at the moment has quite wide powers in terms of detention and it does not refer to powers of detention unless an applicant co-operates with the screening centre. The Minister described that scenario.”
“These screening centres may be relying on technology that reinforces biases and has very serious consequences, particularly for certain ethnic groups and minors. Will the Minister assure me that it will not be used as an argument in relation to the question of age assessment?”
“I also fear that it might be used by the authorities to suggest that what they consider a match for a person was found on the Eurodac system and they determine a person's age on the basis of that. I am very concerned about facial recognition being used in general, but particularly given its impacts in relation to certain ethnic groups - those with darker skin tones, who have been found to be disproportionately wrongly identified - and minors. I can come back to the Minister afterwards on these but they are core problems I see in what the Ombudsman for Children has identified as a new system, not the normal system where people were passing this first test, the one where people were effectively committing an offence or were being detained and forced to attend these screening centres.”
“Earlier, regarding the age assessment of minors, the Minister made the case for why we needed age assessment. What we have spoken to is the idea that how age assessment is being done is a very significant concern. We point to the fact that medical age assessment or, indeed, age assessment processes are being triggered simply by officials who feel that they would like to have it triggered rather than it being an absolute last resort, which is what the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has said. Our fear is that it is simply becoming standard. I am concerned that this Eurodac system and its facial recognition software might be used on minors. Will the Minister clarify that there are safeguards to ensure that is not the case?”
“The reports from as recently as a few years ago and previously point to the fact that this should not be overused and overrelied on. We talked it through last time that if a person was wrongly identified, there did not seem to be a proper appeal mechanism for them to say they had been falsely identified by these algorithms. The Minister said that it would be relevant when a person's immigration application was considered. What access do people have to actually challenge the interpretation of that? It will simply be a matter of the facial recognition system suggesting who a person is while the person claims this is who they are. Where does the burden of proof sit? How will that be filtered out if we have a pattern of false identification issues?”
“In 2024, we were hearing of extremely serious concerns about the impact that using that kind of technology could have in terms of reinforcing biases within a system, with those biases having very serious consequences for different people. Even the idea of how saying the reports from five or ten years ago show problems but the situation has improved points to the woeful experiment that was covered in the newspapers seems to be lost, in that immigration advice might be given through some kind of a chatbot. Technology that has been shown to be deeply flawed and is producing new problems all the time should not be allowed to test and improve itself on vulnerable persons. They should not be guinea pigs for an area that has consistently been highlighted as needing far better regulation and tighter restrictions on its use.”
“This amendment relates to the question of how facial image data is being used. My colleague will speak to this as well. When we spoke on Committee Stage about the reports indicating issues and concerns on the huge number of false identifiers that we have seen where facial recognition is being used, and the fact that it has been shown to be far less accurate with different ethnic groups and different skin colours, the Minister suggested that those were almost teething problems, that they are improving and that the reports were five or ten years old. I read into the record the fact that we had heard from the UK that the data regulator there had concerns in this regard as recently as 2024.”
“The placement of these amendments is somewhat imperfect. This is another example of what happens when a guillotine is applied. We have amendments that try to address the same issue elsewhere in the legislation, but we believe they are of such crucial significance that it is important that they are addressed and discussed. I have said again and again that the fact of giving 1.2 minutes per amendment does not allow for best practice, and I believe it will lead to a number of flaws in the legislation. That is why we have had to seek to tackle the same issues in a couple of different ways. We should not have legislation that needs to be front-loaded because we assume that if we try to address a flaw at a later stage of the legislation, we will never get to discuss it.”
“I move amendment No. 27: In page 33, between lines 9 and 10, to insert the following: “(8) Facial image data maintained as part of a record of biometric data taken under this Chapter shall not be used as grounds for detention.”.”
“The Immigration Act provides that immigration officers should have to identify themselves when performing functions. It also provides that those conducting searches be subject to regulations that the Minister may put in place. I will not go any further. This is an example of why it is so regrettable that less than 90 seconds were allocated in respect of every amendment, including some of the very practical, small ideas on the performance of functions that were mentioned by Senator Cosgrove. There is no opportunity to pick them up. We may have to come back with a large number of fixes that are needed because we are rushing matters at this point or, rather, because the Government has chosen to rush them.”
“There is no provision in relation to this, or none that we can see. Maybe the Minister will correct me. I would be delighted to learn that there are plans in relation to searches which would, for example, set limits on what can be searched, ensure that there is a receipting function where possessions are taken and set a limit on how long these things can be taken for. That would provide some degree of accountability in respect of immigration officers, who are being given significant powers, such that when they are conducting searches, they will be held to the same standards to which they would be held if they were conducting searches under the Immigration Act. It is the same as in the amendment that the Minister rightly accepted.”
“For somebody who is in the immigration system, the Minister may give clear guidance on how a search may be conducted of a person and their possessions, whereas the equivalent set of regulations does not seem to be provided for in this legislation in relation to persons who are seeking international protection. That is very worrying. If we look at that very wide definition - we had hoped to amend it, but our amendment was ruled out of order - of the kinds of things that can be taken during searches, it could be letters, photographs or currency. Literally, money can be taken. We think of how intensely important photographs are in some cases for those fleeing situations of conflict and war. We think of the pure humanity of this. Maybe the only connection they have back to their family is photographs, but photographs can be taken.”
“I worry that that inadvertent consequence might not have been identified. I give credit to Robert Kitt, who is working with us, and others, who identified it, and to the Minister for engaging and putting it forward as a Report Stage amendment. There are a number of other issues which relate to the same point, where the Minister is giving functions to immigration officers, where I am worried about there being a potential for the same two-tier effect. One example of it is in relation to the functions on search. Under the immigration laws, the Minister may set out regulations on how a search is conducted. There are clear measures set out.”
“I want to make a very short acknowledgement first in relation to this amendment, which talks about those who are performing their functions, as conferred by the Minister. I acknowledge that the Minister has accepted one point that we put forward in relation to the requirement for those officers to identify themselves. That was a good decision. It would be a very worrying thing if we had two classes of immigration officers, with some required to identify themselves and others not, depending on which Act they were performing functions under. It is appropriate and I am glad the Minister has brought that through. It points, however, to the fact that there are a number of other very practical recommendations in relation to the functions of immigration officers, which we are not going to have an opportunity to properly tease out.”
“For those of us who are disappointed to see the legislation guillotined through and who are disappointed that the specific concerns we have raised will not be addressed, at least ensuring ECHR will be measurably tested against the enactment of the Bill is some kind of a safety net and may act as a watchdog or a guard against the dangerous tendencies we have seen both in democratic practice in terms of the Bill and in some of the powers that are allowed for under the legislation.”
“I worry that when we see erosion of rights in practice, the kind of thing that is allowed for here, it will be in breach of the ECHR. That is why having that safety net of a measure of a report that will show that, when we are testing this, we are testing it against that fundamental set of standards, which I do not think is too onerous for Ireland to meet it, is an appropriate safety net for us to have.”
“We see that in the United States. We see it is not an accidental effect. Part of the agenda in the United States is to display situations of misery to create unhappiness and fear. That has a purpose. I am not saying that this is necessarily the Minister's intention but when and if we erode the kinds of standards of the European Convention on Human Rights, chip away at them, lower the bar and set the idea that countries should be able to pick and choose their own interpretations of the kinds of concepts we all agreed collectively as humanity, we are on a very slippery slope. Frankly, so many of the provisions of this legislation are backward steps. They may not be the steps that I have talked about. They may not be what is happening in the United States but it is an architecture that allows for a very worrying erosion of rights.”
“They may then be unsuccessful in their application - so be it - when somebody is in the process of exercising their rights they should be treated with dignity. I do not think that is too high a bar for a State with the resources Ireland has to set itself. Should it be applied to all the people in Ireland who are homeless who sleep on the streets? Yes, it should. It is not acceptable for anybody. There is this idea of us being somehow unable to meet this standard and Europe is forcing us. We are able to meet it; it is a choice not to do so. Then the idea underneath it, a little subtle line, is that it will make it harder to do performative, competitive cruelty of a race to the bottom along the line of we do not want ourselves to look attractive. We want images of misery that migrants are experiencing around the world.”
“It is not the case to suggest our poor State with its billions of surplus could not accommodate that when we see states across the world with nothing accommodating hundreds of thousands of refugees and giving them sanitation facilities and state-provided tents, if it is tents, rather than the idea that people could be given a €20 voucher and told, "Good luck in Dublin and, by the way, we need you here in another two days to report again." The fact is it is degrading to say that to somebody, and whether or not you like that individual case, and it was a very cherry-picked example of somebody who was in the UK first, the core principle is that when someone is seeking to exercise their rights under international law, they should be treated with dignity.”
“However, what people realise is that the vulnerable in European society, be they older people, younger people or people on the margins, have a lot to lose by the attempts to chip away at our protections under the European Convention on Human Rights. They are making that stand in many cases in solidarity with the others who cannot take those cases. I passed every single day the men who were living on Lower Mount Street. They were living there as a choice. It was a choice that pandered to the far right. It was a decision based on a strategic messaging that said we like women and children refugees but we do not really like the men that they decided to stop accommodating the men. They made that choice. There was 100 at one time.”
“We have heard at length of people not liking different judgments. I will not go into the Swiss case. However, let us be clear. The World Health Organization figures indicate that 23% more people die now directly because of climate change and heat. The assumption may be that we would not expect people in Europe to die. Is it that those people were going to die in other parts of the world and we would never have to see them? Is it not annoying that they are coming and taking cases in Europe when we know that that slight cushion of money we have in Europe should affect these directly known, factual consequences of the actions of European governments? That should not touch us because the effects should happen over there and we should not have to hear about it over here.”
“That is where the UN piece comes from. Then Europe has set itself those other standards to give leadership on what standards should look like because, of course, Europe has been the centre point of two world wars. On the European Convention on Human Rights, which also draws on the Geneva Conventions, the Minister may not like individual judgments and I may not like individual Supreme Court judgment rulings or every judgment from the European Court of Justice, but the way one engages with them is through the court systems, navigating them, setting new precedents and making better arguments. One does not come with this suggestion that it may be easier if they diluted their standards, that if the court systems diluted their standards, we may be able to meet them. That is not how things should be approached.”
“The structures we have put in place within Europe and internationally in relation to international law come from an understanding, not from some naivety, "wouldn't it be nice" or an aspiration. They have come from an absolute understanding of the slippery slope of inhumanity and from a fundamental understanding of a quite radical idea which was not the idea under colonialism which many of these western liberal democracies participated in so freely for centuries. It is not the understanding of might is right, powers which exercise such cruelty and Germany's actions in the Second World War. It is not from that kind of understanding. It comes from the understanding - a radical idea - of all humans mattering, of human rights mattering for everybody and that we would set standards of how we treat our fellow humans.”