Ian Rogers QC will be delivering a guest lecture for The Department of Legal Studies and the Center for European Union Research on Exit Stage Right: Human Rights, “Brexit” and EU law after the UK General Election.
The Conservative Party has pledged to scrap the Human Rights Act in the UK and sever the formal link between the British courts and the European Court of Human Rights. If elected, it would also offer an in/out referendum to the British people on EU membership, raising the prospect of “Brexit” – a British exit from the EU. What will be left of human rights in the UK after the election? What would be the consequences of “Brexit”? And what role will remain for human rights and what will fill the gap left by EU law.
The lecture will be Chaired by Sejal Parmar, Assistant Professor, Department of Legal Studies.
Ian Rogers QC has recently appeared as a barrister in the UK Supreme Court, Court of Justice of the European Union, EFTA Court, Court of Appeal of England and Wales and has worked on international cases from The Bahamas to Kenya. Through his appearance in courts he has secured pensions for UK part-time judges; defended the tobacco display bans in the UK and Norway and the UK cigarette vending machine ban and presently advises on plain packaging of tobacco laws; defended the UK Prime Minister in a judicial review of the decision not to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty; and he has resisted a free movement challenge to the monopoly on ferry services between the Isle of Man and the UK. He served as Treasury Counsel (counsel to the UK Attorney-General) and Welsh Government Public Law Counsel until his appointment in 2014 as Queen’s Counsel. He greatly enjoyed the hospitality of the CEU during his research sabbatical here in 2013 and at the EUI, Florence, working on an ongoing project on commercial privacy rights.