A Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland: Polling Results Launch by Human Rights Consortium

In the wake of Brexit, conversations concerning the future of Northern Ireland and the unprecedented challenges of the COVID19 pandemic, it is clear that a set of ambitious rights protections are still needed in Northern Ireland.

An unfulfilled promise of the peace process; a strong, inclusive and enforceable Bill of Rights, could help address the range of existing rights and equality disparities in our society which the pandemic and current political instability have amplified.

Please join us via Zoom on the 23rd June for the launch of this new public polling commissioned in collaboration by Ulster University, Queen’s University Belfast and the Human Rights Consortium and funded by Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which explores community attitudes towards the content of a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland.

This research aims to contribute to moving the debate about a Bill of Rights forward by not looking simply at the idea in the abstract, but at public attitudes towards the detail of what it should contain and its significance in the current political climate.

This report comes at the conclusion of a project with Dr Anne Smith, Ulster University, and Professor Colin Harvey, Queen’s University Belfast, funded by Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, that has provided a draft model Bill of Rights as well as a range of research outputs. As the final part of this funded project, Ulster University and Queens University Belfast collaborated with the Human Rights Consortium to deliver this public opinion polling to further evidence the ongoing support for substantial additional rights protections in Northern Ireland.

It hopes to provide an enhanced evidence base of the public support and desire for a specific, ambitious Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and advance collective efforts to deliver on the promise of a rights-based society in this region.

Speakers include:

• Colin Harvey, Professor of Human Rights Law at Queen’s University Belfast.
• Kevin Hanratty, Director of the Human Rights Consortium.
• Emma Sheerin MLA, Chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights.
• Paula Bradshaw MLA, Deputy Chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee.
• Civil Society Organisations.

More speakers to be announced.