More than just 'Protecting Veterans’: How the UK Government Plans to Get Rid of the ECHR in Overseas Operations

On 18 March the UK Minister for Defence Ben Wallace introduced into the UK Parliament a promised package of new legislation designed to ‘protect veterans’. Entitled the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, the proposed laws would amend the UK’s Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) in a number of ways that impact on its human rights obligations under international law, particularly treaty commitments under the ECHR. This blog post deals particularly with the proposal for the UK to consider derogating from the ECHR for overseas operations.