system of administrative law, and of administrative courts, with or without any of these. But if we expect to be believed, at home or abroad, when we assert that human rights are fully protected under the law of our country, we would do well to enact the European Convention as part of that law, so that our courts can enforce it directly at the suit of our citizens.
"Human rights", after all, is a concept that transcends party politics. No modern political philosophy rejects it in terms, though there are differences in emphasis and in interpretation. The Communist countries, for example, assert the primacy of the economic and social rights, and justify the low priority they give to civil and political rights on that ground. Others seek to use concepts such as national security or ordre public to legitimate their acts of oppression. Such arguments are familiar enough: they have been put forward by governments of all complexions for many centuries. But today, for the first time in human history, they are no longer arguments of expediency, or morality, or even of ideology. They are arguments of law, and the established and dispassionate processes of legal analysis can now be used to uphold them if they are well-founded, and to reject them if they are not.
That new situation may not yet have provided much comfort to the millions who languish in prison, or in exile, or suffer other injustices. But, provided that lawyers the world over grasp the opportunity, there is now at least a glimmer of light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. This may be the only progress in the field of human rights that can be recorded in the last year, and it is so far no more than a glimmer. But it may one day prove to have been a step of the first importance.
NUCLEAR POWER AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
Towards the end of last year, our attention was drawn to a pamphlet called Nuclear Prospects, written by Robin Grove-White and Michael Flood. That pamphlet drew attention to certain serious threats to civil liberties from a large-scale nuclear power programme quite apart from the risks to the environment, the safety risks of nuclear reactors, the international proliferation of nuclear weapons, and other similar dangers which fall outside the competence of JUSTICE.
We thought it right to enquire from the Secretary of State for Energy whether the dangers to civil liberties outlined in that pamphlet were merely fanciful, and in the course of a meeting with Mr. Benn, attended by Lewis Hawser and Paul Sieghart, it became clear that they were nothing of the kind. Accordingly, the Executive Committee authorised Paul Sieghart to write to The Times, and our letter was published there on 31st March. A substantial debate has followed. Meanwhile, President Carter has reversed the US Administration's policy about plutonium and nuclear power, at least in part because of the risks to civil liberties.
At the time of preparing this report, we anxiously await a statement of our own Government's position on this issue.
ROYAL COMMISSION ON LEGAL SERVICES
In common with many other organisations, JUSTICE has submitted evidence to this Commission. This involved a great deal of work for the
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