British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proposed waiving some elements of international human rights law in the United Kingdom as he sought to push his controversial plan to fly asylum-seekers to Rwanda through Parliament.
Under a bill published on Wednesday, the Conservative government would be able to advance its deportation policy regardless of objections that it might breach the U.K. Human Rights Act and court decisions interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It stopped short of "disapplying” the ECHR itself, as demanded by some right-wing Tories.
The bill is part of a two-pronged approach by Sunak to implement a policy to deport migrants to Rwanda. Since being advanced by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration in 2022, it has been repeatedly held up by European and U.K. courts, culminating in its rejection last month as "unlawful” by the Supreme Court.