Colin Murray

Research Launch ‘Windsor Framework Article 2: Enforcement and Remedies' The NIHRC is delighted to invite you to the launch of its new research report 'Windsor Framework Article 2: Enforcement and Remedies’.

Eager for the latest research on Northern Ireland's special post-Brexit rights and equality protections? Come fill your boots at the Europa Hotel Belfast on 16 December:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-l...

Exiting the Market is a god awful euphemism for University closures...

If the Palestine Action case does nothing else (and you'd need a lot of faith in the power of rights in security contexts to think it will) it spotlights once again the lamentable mess of Closed Material Procedures that the UK Govt has so far gotten away with:

www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov...

Kneecap: Canadian PM's office and border services not 'involved' in ban - BBC News In September, Liberal MP and Parliamentary Secretary for Combating Crime Vince Gasparro announced the ban "on behalf" of the Canadian government.

You could set a whole public law exam based around governmental cock ups based on ministers' aversion to Kneecap. But the Canadian Govt announcing a ban on them entering the country "by accident" is next-level bizarre:

share.google/uj6ImbuaMKeu...

Jury trials could be scrapped except in most serious cases Only cases of alleged murder, rape or manslaughter will be decided by a jury under new proposals to cut court backlogs.

The UK has gone from "We need to enshrine the right to jury trial in a British Bill of Rights" to "We need to abolish jury trial" in the space of about 3 years.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

*Stares from the part of the UK in which jury trials were ditched in very many serious cases half a century ago*

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Gavin Robinson's push back against the Covid Report is pretty gratuitous. It doesn't take someone to live in NI to point out that the power sharing system facilitates the pursuit of narrow sectional interests and the behaviour of the largest parties showed up the problems of this amid a pandemic:

Really important decision for the rights of gay people, who are EU citizens, moving around the EU and seeking to ensure their marriage in one Member State is recognised in another. Notably more weight placed on citizenship rights than in the AG Opinion:

curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/...

More of the growing wave of scholars working on authoritarianism leaving Trump's United States:

Nicolas Guillou, French ICC judge sanctioned by the US: 'You are effectively blacklisted by much of the world's banking system' Six judges and three prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have been sanctioned by the Trump administration. In an interview with Le Monde, Guillou discusses the impact of these measures on ...

This story should be covered waaaaayy more than it is.

The US has sanctioned six judges if the international criminal court ICC, because Trump didn’t like them issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.

www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

Look, NYC has shown everyone that you can't fight a social media savvy campaign like this using an old-school turn to rights-based arguments...

Splashing a million pound of our money on a gang of thugs is beyond sick Public services in Northern Ireland are collapsing, and we’re constantly told there’s not enough money to fix them.

Three different articles on the BelTel alone today, showcasing appropriate anger at PEACEPlus (the EU programme) and Co-operation Ireland for financing proscribed organisations, specifically the South East Antrim UDA, that was behind the Ballymena race riots in June.

Major plenary from @ulsterunischlaw.bsky.social's Ciara Fitzpatrick on the devastating impact of educational cuts in the context of a divided school system and the multiple ways in which this ingrains social disadvantage in NI:

We're really lucky to have a plenary from @tmulqueen.bsky.social on the interlinkage of legal advice centres and university law clinics and the job of work of systemic change rather than one-off problem solving amid widespread need and scarcity of legal support.

A great paper from @rjjoconnell.bsky.social on the ebb and flow of equality protections, bringing particular focus to The Executive Office committee inquiry into NI equality law...

Great to be at @ulsterunischlaw.bsky.social for the Irish Association of Law Teachers for the Annual Conference - including a significant panel on the framing of rights in Northern Ireland law, kicked off here by @aoifemod.bsky.social and Kathryn McNeilly:

Quite the correction by the Telegraph. The publication in question is @freemovement.bsky.social

But played with such gusto! Thought the place was going to lift off!

I know. Amazing. Clearly big Van energy in the Bob camp today!

Over twenty years since Bob Dylan was last in Belfast and I think he came back just to warble "I can tell a Proddy from a mile away" on Goodbye Jimmy Reed and know that only a few folk will have any idea what he just said. Golden.

Book Launch: Consociational Powersharing in Northern Ireland

Book Launch: Consociational Powersharing in Northern Ireland, 25 November at 4pm
www.qub.ac.uk/events/whats...

Palestine Action: PSNI faces questions on policing of support for proscribed groups Despite arrests and advisory letters since Palestine Action was banned, no similar action was taken over displays of support for paramilitaries

If you read one thing today, let it be this article from @lukejbutterly.bsky.social. Discriminatory policing, the handing down of impunity to loyalist terror groups and supporters, and according to the @cajni.bsky.social - the 'risked discriminatory impact against nationalists.'

I watched Yarvin’s Sheldonian lecture. What struck me is that he’s describing real institutional failures, but he completely misdiagnoses the cause. He treats “democracy” as the problem, when the actual collapse is upstream.

Newton Emerson: Is Northern Ireland facing a Windsor Framework immigration fiasco? Framework is so poorly conceived that the whole of Europe could tighten up its immigration rules and Northern Ireland might be unable to follow

An idea is gaining traction in pieces like this that NI is stuck with old EU rules even if the EU tightened its immigration policies. This is a significant misreading of WF Art 2 - if "but for" Brexit, EU law would permit UK action, then Art 2 doesn't prevent it:

www.irishnews.com/opinion/newt...

‘The English person with a Chinese stomach’: how Fuchsia Dunlop became a Sichuan food hero The long read: The author has been explaining Sichuan cuisine to westerners for decades. But ‘Fu Xia’, as she’s known, has had a profound effect on food lovers in China, too

Every Grain of Rice is an incredible cook book which everyone who loves to cook should have handy:

www.theguardian.com/food/2025/no...

The Telegraph churns out these stories almost daily, but this one about the reduced range of tumble dryers is v funny. Reduced range simply means that people in NI can't buy inefficient models which can't be sold in EU. And no, Robin Swann, by definition that means folk can't buy them from Ireland:

Oxford University Has Failed Women Over Harassment Concerns, Staff Say The university has repeatedly been slow to act against male academics accused of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, a Bloomberg investigation found.

With dizzying power imbalances at "prestigious" institutions and frightening levels of precarity for junior scholars, UK academia is rife with these stories:

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Fear is such a misplaced word here. The concept of women having to look a certain way to be accepted as women has to be what would scare people with any inkling of feminism, and maybe even Philipson?

Paul Givan being unavailable for interview on the day of a UK Supreme Court judgment with massive ramifications for school policy in NI is so dispiriting. It just plays into a narrative that no one is in charge and having power sharing functioning isn't very different from when it has collapsed.