sovereign state". That phrase is of course still trotted out by force of habit, but for the ratifying countries it no longer furnishes an escape route: if they infringe their obligations under the Covenants, that is now the legitimate concern of all the rest of the world. No doubt legal advice to that effect has been one of the factors encouraging President Carter in his campaign, and perhaps such legal advice has also had its influence in Czechoslovakia in connection with "Charter 77"--both on those who wrote and signed it, and on those who are looking for ways of suppressing it.
But many who are not lawyers, and who view the law with suspicion if not mistrust, will wonder whether it really matters that human rights now have a legal, and not merely a moral, foundation. After all, in much of the world the code of International Human Rights Law is persistently flouted every day. Most of South and Central America now groans under military dictatorships. No one could regard the Communist countries as free in any sense that matters to their citizens. And parliamentary democracy on the Westminster or Capitol Hill model has not proved a startling success in most of the liberated colonies of Africa and Asia.
In fact the key to the protection of human rights lies ultimately as much in the Rule of Law as in parliamentary democracy. If conflicting claims to rights are to be resolved in ways that are just, and are seen and felt to be just, then there must be just laws, and just courts in which they can be asserted, defended, and enforced. An independent judiciary, and a fearless, honest and independent legal profession are essential prerequisites for the Rule of Law-all the more so now that there is an appeal to International Human Rights Law to determine whether domestic laws are just laws. Parliamentary democracy has often-though by no means. always—proved to be a means whereby those ends can be achieved. But it is not itself the end: the end is the rule of just law, justly interpreted, applied and enforced, and each nation must find the most appropriate means for achieving that end within its territory.
Within the United Kingdom, there is still great ignorance about Human Rights Law, even among lawyers. We profess surprise and hurt that our country, the cradle of modern democracy and of the Rule of Law, should be more frequently arraigned at Strasbourg than any of our partners within the Council of Europe. The reason-as Lord Gardiner pointed out in a recent letter to The Times-is that the Convention is still not part of our domestic law, though it is more than a quarter of a century since we became bound by it. Our own courts-unlike those of many other European countries-cannot therefore yet apply it, and our citizens cannot go to them to seek redress for its infringement, and must go to Strasbourg instead. That alone is a powerful argument for now enacting it as part of our domestic law, and there are many others. What is important to remember-as the British Institute of Human Rights has again pointed out quite recently-is that this has nothing to do with a written constitution, the sovereignty of Parliament, or administrative law. We could have a Bill of Rights (as, for example, in the form of the European Convention) without a written constitution. We could have a written constitution without having a Bill of Rights. We could have either, or both, without fettering the sovereignty of Parliament. And we could have a coherent
8