Scotland's Human Rights Bill

Scottish Government is wanting to create a Human Rights Bill that will incorporate four United Nations Human Rights treaties into Scots Law! Subject to devolved competencies, this new law plans to better protect the human rights of women, disabled people and minority ethnic communities.

The four United Nations Human Rights treaties that would be put into Scots Law include:

the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

This would build on current work to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law.

Find out more about the National Taskforce here.

What's been happening?

STEP 1: Creating the National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership

The Scottish Government formed a National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership to support the development of this new Human Rights Bill. The National Taskforce first spoke to children, young people and adults to see what they thought about creating this law!
STEP 2: Gathering children and young people’s views
To make sure this new law is shaped by people's views and experiences the National Taskforce wanted to hear what children and young people. To support this, Together developed three short briefings to help children and young people understand what human rights incorporation would mean for them. There are three briefings, each focusing on a specific topic:
STEP 3: Making recommendations
Children and young people expressed their thoughts about this new law and how it could affect them and their communities. Together shared this with the National Taskforce in a report here.

The National Taskforce then wrote a report to the Scottish Government, drawing from what they heard from children and young people alongside other groups. The report made 30 recommendations to the Scottish Government.
- Read the report in full here.
- Read the summary of key points here.
- Read the Easy Read version of the report here.
STEP 4: Children and young people supporting Scottish Government
The National Taskforce's recommendations were accepted by Scottish Government. Together is working with Rights Detectives to help Scottish Government move forward with developing this new law!
- Read more about our work with Rights Detectives here!

Scotland's Human Rights Bill vs. UK wide Human Rights Act

Terminology can be confusing, especially when things sound so similar!

That's why we have created a briefing here which sets out the difference between Scotland's Human Rights Bill and the UK wide Human Rights Act!

Read our briefing here!