On 12 March 2021, the Scottish National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership published its report setting out its recommendations for the Scottish Government to establish a statutory framework for human rights that will give domestic effect to international human rights treaties so as to protect and advance the realisation of human rights in Scotland. At this Discussion Group, Professor Alan Miller will describe the work and recommendations of the Taskforce.

Professor Alan Miller is the Independent Co-Chair of Scotland’s National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership, a Professor of Practice in Human Rights Law at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and a member of its Centre for the Study of Human Rights Law. He also serves as an Independent Expert with the UNDP Crisis Bureau. He practised law until being unanimously elected and re-elected by the Scottish Parliament as the inaugural Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. His peers then elected him as inaugural Chair of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions and Vice-Chair of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) before appointing him as GANHRI Special Envoy.

Dr Hayley Hooper, a Glaswegian public lawyer, and a fellow at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford will respond to Professor Miller’s presentation. She is an Associate Professor in Law, and an academic affiliate of the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights. She holds an LL.B from the University of Glasgow, and a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL), M.Phil in Law, and a D.Phil in Law from the University of Oxford. Her teaching interests include European Union Law, Constitutional Law, and Administrative Law. Her interests are broadly within the fields of Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. Hayley is the co-author of Parliament’s Secret War (Hart: Bloomsbury, 2018). This book concerns war powers in the British Constitution and offers a critical inquiry into the Westminster Parliament’s role in relation to the war prerogative since the beginning of the twentieth century. Hayley is also working on a monograph on the closed material procedure, a process that facilitates the use of national security evidence in civil litigation.