ABSTRACT
The caller was adamant that the United Kingdom’s 1998 Human Rights Act (HRA) was responsible for the rise in immigration widely credited as driving 'Brexit'. "Everyone has duties to the community", proclaims The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Article 29, and this requires clearly defined "limitations" to be placed on the exercise of individual rights, as "determined by law". When the UDHR was adopted on 10 December 1948, Article 29 must have appeared like a bolt from the blue, apparently disembodied from the bulk of the Declaration which preceded it. Although the UDHR, despite external and internal pressures to the contrary, was not intended to be legally enforceable, neither was it aimed to be a document of pious sentiments with little impact. The influence and impact of Article 29 has been far wider and deeper than the absence of a UDHR enforcement mechanism would suggest.
