Sir Cliff Richards v BBC: is publicity the soul of justice?
You don’t have to be a privacy or media lawyer to have heard of the sex abuse allegations levied against celebrities in the entertainment industry over the last few years. The investigations concerning Sir Cliff Richard, a famous British musician, included a widely-televised raid on his
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know
The GDPR has been in force for less than two weeks, but Europeans have already started to contact companies left, right and centre to exercise their newly enshrined statutory “right to be forgotten.” However, this right is not absolute, and only applies in certain circumstances. Let’s
Google prepares for the first “Right to Be Forgotten” trials in England
All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret. ― Gabriel García MárquezThe European Union's Court of Justice decision in Google Spain v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González ("Google Spain") confirmed the “right to be forgotten” for European citizens. This right is further enshrined in the upcoming General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Accordingly, European data protection law grants individuals a qualified right to have personal data relating to them removed from search engines. This right is however considered by some to be a uniquely European phenomena, which resulted from one unusual CJEU judgement. Now, two upcoming cases against Google will be the first time in which the "right to be forgotten" will be considered by the English Courts. Two unnamed claimants, known only as NT1 and NT2, are bringing a companion case against Google to enforce their right to be forgotten. (NT1 v Google and NT2 v Google, [2018] EWHC 67 (QB) (Rev 3))
Comparing American & European Human Rights Norms
From the archives! I wrote this essay in 2012 for my coursework in European human rights law, as part of my masters' degree. Reading it now, five years and a law degree later (!) is a bit cringe, but I think it does a fairly decent job of explaining some of the more theoretical differences in American and European approaches to human rights.
Is the European recognition of positive obligations in human rights law superior to the view taken by the United States Supreme Court?
In the Liberal tradition, democracies emphasise the political and civil rights of their citizenry: autonomy, the rule of law, and both positive and negative liberties of the individual are some of many examples. But what of the negative and positive obligations regarding the state, in as much as human rights are concerned? While the democratic values of Europe and America are largely built upon the same ideals, it is the means by which their different legal systems ascertain government duty wherein a fundamental divergence of responsibility occurs. Principally, the distinction centres on the reach of law, and to what extent conflicts can be ameliorated through courts.