After Brighton: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

This paper examines the Declaration on the Future of the European Court of Human Rights – the product of the High Level Conference of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers that was held in Brighton, UK, in April 2012. The paper considers the extent to which the Declaration is likely to affect the relationship between national courts and legal systems, on the one hand, and the Human Rights Court, on the other. In particular, the paper examines these issues from the perspective of the present debate in the UK concerning the possible adoption of a Bill of Rights.