In the UK, human rights law is centred around the Human Rights Act 1998. It brought the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights (Convention) into UK law and was also an integral part of the devolution settlement. As a result, people can rely directly on the Convention in the UK, for example by bringing cases against public bodies arguing that their rights have been breached.
The Convention mainly protects civil and political rights, such as the right to life, right to liberty and freedom of speech. It has less importance for what are known as "economic, social and cultural rights", i.e. the right to health, housing, social security etc.
The UK has signed up to various international treaties on economic, social and cultural rights, in particular UN treaties. However, there is no equivalent to the Human Rights Act which brings these rights en masse into UK law.
Since international treaties aren't part of UK law until put into legislation, the result is that the economic, social and cultural rights rights in these treaties have less protection than the civil and political rights in the Convention.
For some time, there have been arguments in Scotland that the economic, social and cultural rights in UN treaties should also be incorporated into domestic law.
Following on from the work of two advisory groups, in 2021 the Scottish Government proposed a new Human Rights Bill in this parliamentary session aimed at addressing this issue.
The Bill would incorporate into Scots law the UN's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as three UN treaties on race (CERD), women (CEDAW) and disability (CRPD). It would also include environmental rights, rights for older people, and an equality clause including provision for LGBTI people.
Although much will depend on the details, the Bill would bring about a major change to the human rights landscape in Scotland.
In the first place, it would mean that a wide range of economic, social and cultural rights could be directly relied on by people in Scotland (for example, in cases against public bodies) instead of being primarily matters for international law, politics and diplomacy.
Given the range of rights protected by these UN treaties, and the additional rights proposed, there would be an impact on numerous areas of policy, including environmental policy, equality policy, housing, health, and education.
The actual impact of the Bill in each policy area will depend to a large degree on the priority which each area is given in the Scottish Government's budget, rather than on the nature of the right itself. Budgets and budget scrutiny will therefore be crucial.
The Bill will also have an impact on the courts and court procedures as the proposals argue that current rules on judicial review need to be strengthened and that barriers to access to justice need to be removed so that people have effective remedies to enforce their rights.
Elements of the Bill are likely to be controversial as there is a long-standing debate about the degree to which economic, social and cultural rights should be given the same legal protection in national law as civil and political rights. In addition, depending on its scope, questions could arise around devolved competence in certain areas of the Bill.
An overview follows of the current human rights framework in Scotland, what would change under the Scottish Government's proposals, and some of the high level issues which are likely to be relevant.