September 17, 2024 • 38 mins
In this special series, we dive deep into the collaborative spirit of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Partnership.
Discover how four unique organisations - PILS, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Human Rights Consortium (HRC) and Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR) are united in their pursuit of equality, human rights and justice.
Recorded the HRP's shared home of Community House in Belfast city centre, join your PILS hosts Emma & Hilary as they sit down with Alexa Moore and Niall Robb to reflect on a landmark collaboration between PILS and the Human Rights Consortium this past spring.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Emma (PILS) (00:22):
Then, this is to be fair. Ni, the Pils project
podcast celebrating theactivists and allies using the
law to change lives. In eachepisode, we'll give you a seat
at the Pils table and bring youinto our public interest world.
To give you a sense of the workthat we're doing on a daily
(00:44):
basis in Northern Ireland.
Hello everyone. It's Emma fromPils here bringing you another
episode of To be fair, ni anepisode that is all about
reflection. Pils are luckyenough to be part of a diverse
(01:06):
collective of four human rightsorganizations called the
Northern Ireland human rightspartnership, along with the
committee on the administrationof justice, the Human Rights
consortium and the participationand practice of rights based in
our shared home of communityhouse in Belfast City Center, a
building that some listenersmight be familiar with, the four
(01:27):
organizations combine each ofour own unique approaches to
deliver long term change andadvance human rights and today
in this episode, Pils areCelebrating the power of
collaboration and specificallythe joint impact that we try to
create every day alongside ourcolleagues in the Human Rights
(01:47):
partnership.
It's the time of year when newstationery is bought, leaves
start to crunch underfoot, andwe collectively transition into
a more autumnal frame of mind.But as summer officially comes
(02:07):
to a close, and the Pils teamdive into a new Court term and
everything that goes along withthat, we want to reflect on a
really satisfying collaborationfrom earlier this year in spring
2024 assumptions, I know aredangerous things, but I'm
(02:28):
assuming that as a to be fair.Ni listener, you might remember
the legal challenge to the UK'sillegal migration act. It hit
the headlines back in May, andthat case taken by the Northern
Ireland Human Rights Commissionunder Article Two of the Windsor
framework, resulted in the HighCourt in Belfast declaring that
(02:48):
certain parts of thatparticularly controversial piece
of legislation could not beapplied in Northern Ireland. And
in this episode of the podcast,Pils are delving into that
decision to share a bit moredetail on the part that we were
very proud to have played inthose headline grabbing
proceedings in partnership withthe Human Rights Consortium. The
(03:16):
Human Rights consortium is abroad alliance of civil society
organizations from across allcommunities, sectors and areas
of Northern Ireland who worktogether to help develop a human
rights based society. The voicesyou'll hear in this episode are
Alexa Moore and denial Robb.Alexa Moore is a human rights
(03:38):
defender based in Belfast andone of the co founders of one of
pils's own member organizations,transgender ni the Pils team
were delighted to get the chanceto work closely with Alexa
during her time with the HumanRights consortium as their full
time research officer. And sinceleaving Community House earlier
this year, Alexa took up a rolewith the rainbow project,
(04:00):
another organization that'sactually part of Pils membership
network as well. After you hearfrom Alexa, you'll also get a
chance to hear from researcherNiall Robb, who actually
succeeded Alexa in the researchofficer position and continued
the Human Rights Consortium'scollaboration with Pils. Niall
joined the Human Rightsconsortium after spending time
(04:20):
in Brussels and working in theNorthern Ireland civil service,
and actually, since thisinterview was recorded, he
successfully defended his PhD onthe influence of interest groups
on the UK's withdrawal from theEuropean Union. So
congratulations. Now you knowwho is who it's over to Alexa
and Niall, thank you. First ofall, Alexa, more from the Human
(04:47):
Rights Consortium for the nextfive hours, five six. Thank you
so so much for being part of tobe fair, ni because so much of
the work that has been. Going onbetween the consortium and
ourselves, even over the past 12months, has been a really lovely
partnership between yourself andHilary, particularly from our
(05:10):
team. So that's why I'm so gladin the final hours of your time
with the Human Rightsconsortium, final day, that we
do actually get a chance to haveyour voice as part of the
podcast. Just wanted to ask you,I suppose, as a starting
question the Human Rightspartnership. We're recording
this first of all, in communityhouse, which is, you know, a
(05:32):
hub, a community of fourorganizations, two of which are
ourselves at the Pils projectand the human rights Consortium.
So just for you as somebodyworking with the consortium,
what does that partnership, Isuppose, look like to you in
your work, day to day? Well,
Alexa Moore (05:48):
I kind of came from a I came from the LGBT sector,
going back to the LGBT fullcircle, but a big focus of my
work, kind of, from the start ofmy career, has been on that kind
of partnership, working incollaboration. I think that you
don't get things done unless youwork with other people, and you
work with kind of organizationsand individuals with whom you
(06:11):
have that kind of common cause.And I think that the fact that
we're all based in the onebuilding is actually really
nice, because I've been able topop down to yourselves and have
chats about, you know, sometimesnonsense. Sometimes you know
very important. Never. Nonsense,never, often nonsense. Sometimes
(06:33):
you know very important issuesor the work that we're doing or
whatever. Sometimes to try andrecruit you into my set dancing
Emma (PILS) (06:40):
class, of which more later in the episode,
absolutely.
Alexa Moore (06:45):
So, yeah, I think that the kind of the model that
we've developed here, in termsof for organizations, you know,
sharing this space has beenreally useful for almost
necessitating that collaborativework. The consortium shares an
office with cage, the committeeand the administration of
justice. So we work together alot use, kind of share a space
(07:08):
with with PPR on the groundfloor, and so, you know,
obviously there's that closenessin terms of proximity, but
there's also we just, we do alot of work together. So we kind
of, in the consortium, runworking groups. We're a
membership based organization asas are yourselves. And so we try
(07:29):
to take our lead from ourmembers and from who the people
and organizations that we'rekind of collaborating with. We
try to take their lead in termsof what kind of work we do and
what kind of work is most usefulfor our members in responding to
the issues of the time. And youknow, as you say, this year, we
kind of focused that a lot onthe illegal migration act, some
(07:53):
of the regressive and horriblemeasures that the UK Government
was taking on refugees andasylum seekers. And you know, we
kind of restructured some of ouralready existing kind of working
groups and already existingmembership structures to enable
that collaboration and to kindof hit the ground running with
(08:14):
that kind of joint project.
Emma (PILS) (08:17):
Some of the work that we've done together over
the past year has beenparticularly important because
these issues, I think, can oftenbe framed with a very, either UK
or London centric lens. And Ireally think a huge amount of
credit to yourself and theconsortium has to, has to go on
how you have been able to putforward the Northern Ireland
(08:38):
specific concerns and all ofthese issues to say, Well, look,
you might know about this issuefrom the news headlines, but
there's specific ways that thisproposed piece of legislation or
this policy change is going toaffect people who are living in
Belfast and Derry and inFermanagh, and that doesn't
necessarily always get theattention that it deserves. So I
(08:58):
think huge amount of credit hasto go to the Consortium for
being that constant voice andremind and reminding people of
that. So I
Alexa Moore (09:09):
did, particularly, I was quite proud of the joint
briefing that we worked ontogether. I think that, you
know, we kind of took eachother's expertises like the
consortium in in kind of ourwork. We haven't been a
migration or asylum policyfocused organization. That's not
our expertise, that's not ourspecialty, and we wanted to make
sure that we were adding value,rather than duplicating work or
(09:33):
stepping on toes or taking over.You know, that kind of work, and
you know because our, as yousay, our kind of Human Rights
Act working group had been quitefocused on the direct threats to
the Human Rights Act. I don'tknow if anyone remembers the
Bill of Rights bill, the rightsremoval bill, as as we coined it
in civil society. It seems so solong ago that Dominic Raab was,
(09:57):
was was marching through. This,this, this bill of rights that
was gonna, you know, completelyrestructure the UK's human
rights frameworks. Andobviously, it's dead and gone
now. But we, what we did, wekind of saw that that kind of
threat to those frameworkswasn't going to go away. It was
just going to become moretargeted. And we, you know, it
(10:17):
was targeted at prisoners. Itwas targeted at, in particular,
refugees and asylum seekers. Andso, you know, we tried to kind
of draw on each other'sexpertises, and you know, we
worked with yourselves in inPils to get some of that legal
expertise on, you know, whatwill these changes mean for the
actual process of going throughand seeking asylum? And then the
(10:40):
consortium kind of contributed,okay, well, what, how does this
kind of great against thecommitments made in the Good
Friday Agreement, in the Windsorframework, slash the protocol,
or in, you know, in our web of,kind of international and
domestic human rightsframeworks. And so I think that
the two kind of focus has reallycomplemented each other. And,
(11:02):
you know, we relied heavily onPPR for that kind of ground
level, grassroots work, workingwith in particular kind of
migrant and asylum seeker ledorganizations to kind of, you
know, kind of work across thesector and across, you know,
different differentorganizational structures to get
(11:22):
buy in. We worked with Cha whohave that expertise on in
particular, you know, the CommonTravel Area, electronic Travel
Authorization. So it was, it wasa real example of that kind of
partnership working really, kindof working really well and and
everyone having their part toplay in resisting what wasn't,
(11:44):
frankly, horrendous piece oflegislation. And lo and behold,
now it's being challenged, youknow, so that's, I think, I
think we did a good job at kindof playing to each other's
strengths and and and workingtogether and across, you know,
beyond the partnership to tryand resist the bill and platform
the arguments against it,
Emma (PILS) (12:05):
because the briefing was a very visible,
tangible lobbying call. It'sstill available on both our
websites, if anybody hasn't seenthat and would like to go and
take a look that we're not justsaying we told you so, we did
indeed tell you so. But that hasall come to fruition now in that
the Commission are activelygoing to court to challenge
(12:25):
this. Our work on that, as Isaid, is maybe a little bit less
visible
Alexa Moore (12:30):
and and this case is really interesting, because
the Human Rights Commission isable to take it all off their
own back there doesn't need tobe a victim. We don't need to
wait until this whole act isimplemented and all of these
horrible things are happening tothem, be like, Oh, well, this is
bad. Stop it, please. And youknow, whenever people think of
(12:51):
the Windsor framework or theprotocol, they don't think of
human rights. No one thinks.They think of the border and the
Irish Sea and trade and tradeand this, that and the other.
But the the human rightscommitments in it are actually
really important. Um, this isthe first major case that has
been taken to kind of enforcethat commitment and to start to
kind of hash out what itactually means in the law. Um,
(13:14):
obviously it's not, it's notperfect, and no one is ever
trying to claim that it'sperfect, but hopefully it can
help us act as a kind of stopgap. So this, I think it'll be a
really important case. It'll bea really interesting case, and
it'll be kind of, it will haveimpacts down the road as well,
in terms of how that commitmentin theory is brought down into
(13:35):
practice.
Emma (PILS) (13:36):
You can see that there's a huge community working
in Northern Ireland, that is,that is really, really making
practical steps to resist anawful lot of this, the terms
drive me mad, because it justcompletely detaches from the
human reality. The hostileenvironment makes it sound like
a thing that just happened, youknow, like it was a weather
(13:58):
event that was uncontrollable.Oh, look, here comes the hostile
environment. Like, batten downthe hatches. Watch out. Whereas
it's, this is something that wasso proactively done just in
order to hold on to power. Andall the terminology just pulls
it away from the fact that thisis affecting people, yeah,
Alexa Moore (14:16):
100% and I mean, like, I think the point about
terminology is really, reallyimportant, because what we've
seen over the past, kind of56789, 10 years, is a just a
complete reframing ofdiscussions around kind of
migration, around refugees andasylum seekers, around all of
(14:37):
this. But you know, we've alsokind of, more recently, seen
quite a widespread shift interms of how, you know, refugees
and asylum seekers beingreferred to exclusively as
illegal immigrants or illegalmigrants. And, you know, I don't
know if people have noticed,it's just, it's accepted now
(14:59):
that's. That's just the termsthat people use. The illegal
migration act is not aboutquote, unquote, illegal
migration. It is aboutpreventing people from seeking
asylum. It is about shuttingdown the asylum process and
shutting down the ability ofrefugees to make a home. In the
UK, it
Emma (PILS) (15:17):
makes it sound as if there is an alternative. It
makes it sound as if there is avery well supported legal
migration scheme, you know, asif, exactly as if that hasn't
been hollowed out over the sameperiod of time.
Alexa Moore (15:33):
We all need to do everything that we can to resist
this, to push back on this, tocollaborate in whatever way that
we can to, you know, put an endto all of this, and we can't sit
in our laurels, because, youknow, the tone has been set, and
it'll take a lot of work to rollback that tone to a point where
(15:54):
we consider Everyone humans andpeople deserving of human
rights.
Emma (PILS) (16:02):
You touched on this earlier, and I think it's a
really important point to make,is that the work that both the
consortium and Pils do, becausewe are membership organizations
and we're not frontlineorganizations providing
immediate support services inthat way, we're a support
service nearly four othersupport service organizations,
(16:22):
and I think that's somethingthat's really important with how
the consortium have done theirwork, is that it involves, as
you say, at every point, refugeeled, asylum seeker led
communities and groups. I knowthe work that the PPR are doing
are is an absolute perfectexample of how that is led by
(16:43):
people. And that's the thing,and I think that's something
that's very important for us, isbecause we have access, and we
are very lucky in that we haveaccess to whether it's political
power or ourselves in the legalcommunity, whether we like it or
not, that does give that comeswith a particular influence and
a privilege and access to placesthat not everybody has access
(17:05):
to. So I think it's about usmaking sure that we use that
privilege and that access in asan effective way as possible, to
do what we can, to notnecessarily take the place of
people, but to at least where wecan get in, to keep resisting
and pushing back against that.Because it was something that I
wanted to just very quickly askyou about before we finish as
(17:26):
well, is around, because I knowyou've talked about like that,
you're a campaigner, that that'sthat's in your DNA, and that's
where, that's where your hearthas been, and that's something
definitely you can see, howyou've been able to work that
expertise into into all theroles that that you've held in
the sector, just as opposed totalk about that importance of,
(17:49):
you know, allyship, and whatgenuine allyship looks like to
you, either in a like, apersonal or a professional
sense. Because sometimes inparticular areas of work, you
know, Ally has become a termthat is used an awful lot now,
but maybe not necessarily alwaysin in the best way or in a
positive way. So I justwondered, yeah, genuine
(18:10):
allyship. What does that looklike to you when you're trying
to build momentum for acampaign? And it's,
Alexa Moore (18:19):
I guess it's hard for me to say to speak for
everyone, or to speak, you know,in particular, in this kind of
context, for refugees, asylumseekers, for kind of migrant
communities, you know, I cantell you what allyship looks
like to me, a trans person and atrans woman, in a increasingly
febrile kind of environment fortrans people in the UK, but I
(18:44):
suppose you know, when it comesto my work here on this topic,
what it has meant for me istrying my best to get people in
the room who obviously aredirectly affected by these
issues, who feel like they'reable to work on it, to kind of,
(19:06):
you know, do some, some kind ofcampaigning or advocacy, or
whatever on it, and tomeaningfully equip them to do
that. You know, we know thatthere are many organizations, as
you say, out there kind ofmigrant or refugee, asylum
seeker led organizations whofundamentally don't have the
(19:26):
capacity to do so much of thiswork, like they are. They're
swamped trying to kind ofsupport individuals, support
their communities. And you know,it was the same when I was
running a trans organization,like we're like, obviously, we
were trying to do campaigning,we were trying to do that
advocacy, but so much of ourwork is firefighting, and so
much of the work is, you know,supporting individuals to access
(19:50):
welfare or to access housing orto, you know, trying to
Emma (PILS) (19:54):
get access to health care, like, good luck.
You know, good luck.
Alexa Moore (19:58):
Geez Louise um. So, you know, I think a significant
kind of amount of of whatallyship is, in particular, kind
of in the NGO space, is to tryto build that capacity and to
lend your capacity where youhave it again, people who are
living this just don't have,don't have the time, don't have
(20:20):
the energy don't, you know, alot of times, just don't want
to, you know, because it'sbloody horrible. And again, from
my own perspective, working ontrans healthcare and being a
trans person, not being able toaccess healthcare, that was
demoralizing and horrible, youknow, like it just is. So all
that we can do is put our wholeweight into supporting the
(20:43):
organizations and resisting thatkind of regression of rights,
and to do that, and to not belike, Oh, look at me. I'm
resisting human rightsregression. Woo, aren't I?
Class, you know, to actually tryand give a platform to, you
(21:04):
know, people who are affected bythis. It's, I, I'm always
conflicted about, because it's,it's, you know, it's, it's so
much of it is, like, if youclaim to be an ally, Well, geez,
like, you know you're gonna,you're gonna have to prove it,
because everyone can claim to bean ally, you know, like I can
sit here and claim to be an allyto whoever, but if you're not
(21:27):
doing the work, then what's thepoint? You know? And all we can
do is our best to try and kindof resist that right regression,
to try and bring people into theroom to try and lend our
capacity and support andresources where we can I'm
Emma (PILS) (21:47):
so glad that I got a chance to chat to you, though,
because that the consideredanswer that you just gave, I
think is a perfect example ofwhy I wanted you on the podcast
in the first place. Couldhonestly just sit and talk to
you all day about this. Onething I actually should have
mentioned during the podcast aswell is, in addition to being a
(22:09):
campaigner, lobbyistextraordinaire, Alexa Moore was
also our set dance guru thisthis past year when we held a
residential in Belfast and Alexaled ourselves in a room full of
lawyers and campaigners with atfellow legal hubs across the UK
(22:29):
in a set dance icebreaker, whichI think was probably my favorite
moment of the past 12
Alexa Moore (22:34):
months. I'm so glad to hear that. I'm delighted, and
everyone seemed to really enjoyit. I was terrified. I was
absolutely I just like, youknow, looking around. I was, I
was sitting next to AlisonKilpatrick, the chief
commissioner of the Human RightsCommission. I was like, Okay,
how do I get everyone here toset that, to get up and
(22:56):
enthusiastically, to hold handsand skip across the floor. And,
you know, it went really well.I've been, I've been set dancing
for like, the past 10 years. Mygranny got me into it. And,
yeah, I've been running a class.I started, I started it in april
(23:16):
2022, for almost two years,yeah. And it's been absolutely
fabulous. I really enjoy andtrying to get more kind of young
people, more LGBT people, intoset dancing, which, you know,
it's, it's it could do with abit of diversification in the
demographic. I think that's so,yeah, I run that class in the
(23:38):
Mac every, every few weeks,every two weeks, usually. So if
you go on to the the MAXwebsite, the Mac Belfast, you
can find information about that.We
Emma (PILS) (23:48):
will put a link to that in the show notes as well.
I've always wanted to say thatof that link in the show notes,
but we will put a link in theshow notes. So whenever you are
listening to this episode, youcan find out when the next class
is on, if you want to whetheryou are a previous set dancer or
whether you are a newbie to theset dance community. Thank you
(24:10):
so much. Alexa, no, it's been anabsolute pleasure. And yeah, we
will miss you within the wallsof community house on a daily
basis, but we will not be sayinggoodbye. No, we will not be
saying goodbye. And yeah, justwe the Pils team. We're
recording this in the Pilsoffice. The Pils team. Just want
(24:31):
to wish you all the success andgood fortune and all the
positive things for your nextrole. And who knows, we might
just nab you and get you back infor a future episode to talk
about that and pick your brainson all things LGBT equality,
queer emancipation related inthe north of Ireland. Gorgeous,
Alexa Moore (24:50):
I can't wait, lovely. Thank you.
Emma (PILS) (24:52):
Thank you so so much.
Unknown (24:53):
Thank you so much.
Emma (PILS) (25:16):
Um, but again, thank you, Niall for being part
of our podcast series numberone, and just wanted, I suppose,
to give you the opportunity tostart off and introduce yourself
first, because myself and Hilaryknow you very well, as are
updated neighbor and theresearch officer with the Human
(25:37):
Rights Consortium. But thismight be the first time that
people listening to the Pilsproject have heard your voice.
So just want to start off bysaying, Niall, please introduce
yourself and your role at theconsortium. Yes.
Niall Robb (25:53):
So my name is Niall Rob, and I'm the Research
Officer here in the Human RightsConsortium. I have taken over
from Alexa, who I think you mayhave heard from earlier in the
podcast, I lead on the work thatthe consortium does on exiting
the European Union on Brexit,and I'm involved quite heavily
(26:15):
in the work on the Human RightsAct and the ECHR. So that brings
me into contact with the Pilsproject, through some of the
work on the illegal migrationact, on the Rwanda act, and on
that general rights rollbackthat the UK Government is
(26:38):
committed to at this moment intime before this, I did a PhD at
Queen's, and I am due to defendsoon. And apart from that, I've
worked as a civil servant and inthe third sector before this. So
(26:58):
I have a background in politicsand political science. So I
bring a research focus into theinto the role and and and draw
together briefing papers andstatements, any of that kind of
stuff for the for the consortiumand that we use in our advocacy
(27:19):
and in our lobbying on those,those, those topics and and
wider, because the work of theconsortium is is quite broad. We
are, like yourselves, a memberorganization, and we have 165
member organizations from acrossNorthern Ireland of different
sizes, working at policy leveland working at the grassroots.
(27:43):
And we convene as part of ourwork three working groups, one
on the Bill of Rights, one onBrexit and human rights, and a
third, which we co convene withyou as the Human Rights Act
Working Group, which is a groupof organizations and academics.
Unknown (28:07):
Also my co host on the podcast today is, of course, my
colleague, Hilary Perry, who hasbeen part of an awful lot of the
work, particularly over thelast, I suppose, 12 months in
particular, both with Alexa and,of course, now with yourself,
Niall that there has been quitea few issues, as you mentioned,
that we have been working ontogether.
Hilary PILS (28:29):
So I think Niles already highlighted a lot of the
places where our work hasoverlapped, and it's largely
been on the illegal migrationact. And that would have been
work that I did primarily withAlexa, and now on the safety of
Rwanda act. And so obviously,we've had a really successful
(28:50):
challenge here in NorthernIreland on the illegal migration
act. And that was one of thecases on which the human rights
consortium and Pils iscooperation really facilitated
assisting with that challenge.And so Niles made reference to
(29:10):
the Human Rights Act WorkingGroup, which we co convene
together, and we had the HumanRights Commission come to that
group, and they did a reallygood job of engaging with civil
society, and they wanted tospeak to members of the group
about the kind of evidence thatwould be useful to them in the
illegal migration act challenge.And so we spoke with them as
(29:34):
separately as Pils and the humanrights Consortium. Then we spoke
with them as part of the workinggroup as well, and we concluded
that some of the evidence thatwould be really useful for the
commission was evidence aroundthe safety of particular
countries that were listed onthe safe countries list in the
(29:55):
illegal migration act. And so Iknow it's been a while since.
Maybe the illegal migration Acthas been at the forefront of
everyone's mind. So the illegalmigration act essentially
replaced the asylum system inthe UK with a mandatory
detention and removal scheme forany individual arriving in the
(30:19):
UK to seek asylum, and now a lotof those provisions haven't
actually come into effect, butthe case was a challenge to that
act nonetheless, and it was ableto proceed. And really one of
the grounds that the commissionwanted to highlight in that case
was that all of those boundarieson the list are not, in fact,
(30:41):
safe. And so our Polly Kate hasset up this really great scheme
called the country of originscheme, and it is done with
Clifford chance. And so the wayit works is that members of Pils
can come to us and requestinformation on a particular
(31:07):
country so say a firm wasbringing a challenge for an
asylum seeker here, they couldcome to us and ask for a report
on the Safety of that countrybased on that person's
individual circumstances. And sowhat the commission did was they
said, This is the kind ofinformation that would be really
(31:28):
useful to us. And so the HumanRights consortium, who is a
member of Pils, put in anapplication to support the Human
Rights Commission's challenge,and so we were able to obtain
six different really lengthy anddetailed reports on countries on
(31:49):
that safe country list. So we'vegotten feedback from the
Commission that have said thatthat information was really,
really useful in the challengethat the judge referred to that
evidence and then it did reallyhelp advance and facilitate that
successful challenge,
Niall Robb (32:10):
I think, in a sense, that goes to show just how
natural and and fitting that thecooperation is in that we can do
some of that capacity building,research, campaigning, advocacy
(32:31):
type stuff with the lead fromthe Human Rights Consortium, and
then we can have the judicialoversight, any kind of
engagement with with the courtsand so on from the Pils side,
and using that legal expertisethat you have so certainly,
(32:51):
given my background, I'm awareof the value of collaboration
coming from academia, and youknow, very keen to keep to keep
those two strands working, wherewe're collaborating together.
Emma (PILS) (33:09):
And so I suppose from Pils project, we are a
litigation focused organization.And so I think that what we're
seeing with the safety of RwandaAct and the way that we're
coordinating with the HumanRights consortium now is that
hopefully we might be able tofacilitate a similar kind of
(33:32):
cooperation between ourselves,the Consortium, and the members
of the working group who mighthave Some of the evidence that
would be needed to bring thesekinds of challenges and and so
we're still in early stages onthe safety of Rwanda act, but
(33:52):
we're hoping that the kind ofcooperation that we had on the
illegal migration act might beable To be replicated on the
Rwanda act as well,
Niall Robb (34:03):
in terms of work that we've delivered together,
we wrote a letter to the primeminister as the Rwanda act, then
Bill was moving throughParliament, signed by a number
of our working group members,And the process of drawing that
letter together again, showedthe benefit of collaboration in
(34:25):
that we had an initial draft,and then the Pils project with
Hilary was able to add in legalexpertise to that to really
strengthen The letter, so thatwhat we were sending off was
greater than the sum of itsparts. I think we've just
(34:47):
received a response to thatletter, so we'll have to digest
that and see if we want to goback. So yeah, I think that's
the key point. Is the realbenefit of collaboration there
between. Two organizations. Itobviously comes from the example
that Hilary's given of the rolein the illegal migration act.
(35:09):
Case is one that predates myinvolvement with the consortium,
but certainly is one that thatshows the strength of that
collaboration and the rationalefor continuing that
Unknown (35:24):
so much of our work, I think, in the Human Rights
sector, can be reactive. And youknow, we've realized that over
the past few years, a lot of itis in reaction to negative
developments, whereas it'sactually really nice for us to
be able to sit down together,albeit virtually, that could
reflect on that positivesuccess. So that's a very nice
thing too.
Niall Robb (35:44):
Yeah, certainly I mentioned earlier that the work
of the consortium is is quitebroad. So as an organization, we
also organize a human rightsFestival this year. It's from
the second of December to the10th of December. So that goes
across the third of December,which is United Nations
(36:07):
International Day of Personswith Disabilities, and then also
Human Rights Day on the 10th ofDecember. So we help to organize
events that showcase humanrights in Northern Ireland. So
those are some of the thingsthat we do in the consortium,
(36:27):
and some of the work that wehave, you know, moving forward,
trying to think if there'sanything else that I need to
mention at this point, but Ithink I've mentioned quite a
lot.
Unknown (36:39):
So thank you very much now,
Niall Robb (36:41):
not at all
Unknown (36:44):
well. Thanks Hilary as well for being my co host.
Emma (PILS) (36:47):
Hey, no problem, I did none of the heavy lifting.
So thank you. This episode was areal joy to record and the human
rights sector, so often we endup fighting fires, spinning
plates, whatever workplacemetaphor you prefer, that we
(37:10):
rarely take the time to sit downand have a chance to fully
absorb the successes. So Ireally hope this episode was a
useful insight into how humanrights organizations, even ones
with very diverse approaches tochange making, can actually
combine that expertise to createsolutions that ultimately are
(37:30):
greater than the sum of theirparts. And if you are an
immigration practitionerlistening to this episode and
are interested in availing ofour country of origin
information support service,please go to pilsni.org That's
pilsni.org for all the ways toconnect with us. Join us next
(37:50):
time on to be fair, ni to meetanother of our human rights
partnership colleagues, theCommittee on the administration
of justice. Talk to you soon.You to be fair. Ni is a podcast
series created by the PublicInterest Litigation Support
Project. Editing of this episodeis by me. Emma Cassidy, stay
(38:16):
tuned for more conversationswith the activists and allies
using the law to change lives inNorthern Ireland. I.
Then, this is to be fair. Ni, the Pils project
podcast celebrating theactivists and allies using the
law to change lives. In eachepisode, we'll give you a seat
at the Pils table and bring youinto our public interest world.
To give you a sense of the workthat we're doing on a daily
(00:44):
basis in Northern Ireland.
Hello everyone. It's Emma fromPils here bringing you another
episode of To be fair, ni anepisode that is all about
reflection. Pils are luckyenough to be part of a diverse
(01:06):
collective of four human rightsorganizations called the
Northern Ireland human rightspartnership, along with the
committee on the administrationof justice, the Human Rights
consortium and the participationand practice of rights based in
our shared home of communityhouse in Belfast City Center, a
building that some listenersmight be familiar with, the four
(01:27):
organizations combine each ofour own unique approaches to
deliver long term change andadvance human rights and today
in this episode, Pils areCelebrating the power of
collaboration and specificallythe joint impact that we try to
create every day alongside ourcolleagues in the Human Rights
(01:47):
partnership.
It's the time of year when newstationery is bought, leaves
start to crunch underfoot, andwe collectively transition into
a more autumnal frame of mind.But as summer officially comes
(02:07):
to a close, and the Pils teamdive into a new Court term and
everything that goes along withthat, we want to reflect on a
really satisfying collaborationfrom earlier this year in spring
2024 assumptions, I know aredangerous things, but I'm
(02:28):
assuming that as a to be fair.Ni listener, you might remember
the legal challenge to the UK'sillegal migration act. It hit
the headlines back in May, andthat case taken by the Northern
Ireland Human Rights Commissionunder Article Two of the Windsor
framework, resulted in the HighCourt in Belfast declaring that
(02:48):
certain parts of thatparticularly controversial piece
of legislation could not beapplied in Northern Ireland. And
in this episode of the podcast,Pils are delving into that
decision to share a bit moredetail on the part that we were
very proud to have played inthose headline grabbing
proceedings in partnership withthe Human Rights Consortium. The
(03:16):
Human Rights consortium is abroad alliance of civil society
organizations from across allcommunities, sectors and areas
of Northern Ireland who worktogether to help develop a human
rights based society. The voicesyou'll hear in this episode are
Alexa Moore and denial Robb.Alexa Moore is a human rights
(03:38):
defender based in Belfast andone of the co founders of one of
pils's own member organizations,transgender ni the Pils team
were delighted to get the chanceto work closely with Alexa
during her time with the HumanRights consortium as their full
time research officer. And sinceleaving Community House earlier
this year, Alexa took up a rolewith the rainbow project,
(04:00):
another organization that'sactually part of Pils membership
network as well. After you hearfrom Alexa, you'll also get a
chance to hear from researcherNiall Robb, who actually
succeeded Alexa in the researchofficer position and continued
the Human Rights Consortium'scollaboration with Pils. Niall
joined the Human Rightsconsortium after spending time
(04:20):
in Brussels and working in theNorthern Ireland civil service,
and actually, since thisinterview was recorded, he
successfully defended his PhD onthe influence of interest groups
on the UK's withdrawal from theEuropean Union. So
congratulations. Now you knowwho is who it's over to Alexa
and Niall, thank you. First ofall, Alexa, more from the Human
(04:47):
Rights Consortium for the nextfive hours, five six. Thank you
so so much for being part of tobe fair, ni because so much of
the work that has been. Going onbetween the consortium and
ourselves, even over the past 12months, has been a really lovely
partnership between yourself andHilary, particularly from our
(05:10):
team. So that's why I'm so gladin the final hours of your time
with the Human Rightsconsortium, final day, that we
do actually get a chance to haveyour voice as part of the
podcast. Just wanted to ask you,I suppose, as a starting
question the Human Rightspartnership. We're recording
this first of all, in communityhouse, which is, you know, a
(05:32):
hub, a community of fourorganizations, two of which are
ourselves at the Pils projectand the human rights Consortium.
So just for you as somebodyworking with the consortium,
what does that partnership, Isuppose, look like to you in
your work, day to day? Well,
Alexa Moore (05:48):
I kind of came from a I came from the LGBT sector,
going back to the LGBT fullcircle, but a big focus of my
work, kind of, from the start ofmy career, has been on that kind
of partnership, working incollaboration. I think that you
don't get things done unless youwork with other people, and you
work with kind of organizationsand individuals with whom you
(06:11):
have that kind of common cause.And I think that the fact that
we're all based in the onebuilding is actually really
nice, because I've been able topop down to yourselves and have
chats about, you know, sometimesnonsense. Sometimes you know
very important. Never. Nonsense,never, often nonsense. Sometimes
(06:33):
you know very important issuesor the work that we're doing or
whatever. Sometimes to try andrecruit you into my set dancing
Emma (PILS) (06:40):
class, of which more later in the episode,
absolutely.
Alexa Moore (06:45):
So, yeah, I think that the kind of the model that
we've developed here, in termsof for organizations, you know,
sharing this space has beenreally useful for almost
necessitating that collaborativework. The consortium shares an
office with cage, the committeeand the administration of
justice. So we work together alot use, kind of share a space
(07:08):
with with PPR on the groundfloor, and so, you know,
obviously there's that closenessin terms of proximity, but
there's also we just, we do alot of work together. So we kind
of, in the consortium, runworking groups. We're a
membership based organization asas are yourselves. And so we try
(07:29):
to take our lead from ourmembers and from who the people
and organizations that we'rekind of collaborating with. We
try to take their lead in termsof what kind of work we do and
what kind of work is most usefulfor our members in responding to
the issues of the time. And youknow, as you say, this year, we
kind of focused that a lot onthe illegal migration act, some
(07:53):
of the regressive and horriblemeasures that the UK Government
was taking on refugees andasylum seekers. And you know, we
kind of restructured some of ouralready existing kind of working
groups and already existingmembership structures to enable
that collaboration and to kindof hit the ground running with
(08:14):
that kind of joint project.
Emma (PILS) (08:17):
Some of the work that we've done together over
the past year has beenparticularly important because
these issues, I think, can oftenbe framed with a very, either UK
or London centric lens. And Ireally think a huge amount of
credit to yourself and theconsortium has to, has to go on
how you have been able to putforward the Northern Ireland
(08:38):
specific concerns and all ofthese issues to say, Well, look,
you might know about this issuefrom the news headlines, but
there's specific ways that thisproposed piece of legislation or
this policy change is going toaffect people who are living in
Belfast and Derry and inFermanagh, and that doesn't
necessarily always get theattention that it deserves. So I
(08:58):
think huge amount of credit hasto go to the Consortium for
being that constant voice andremind and reminding people of
that. So I
Alexa Moore (09:09):
did, particularly, I was quite proud of the joint
briefing that we worked ontogether. I think that, you
know, we kind of took eachother's expertises like the
consortium in in kind of ourwork. We haven't been a
migration or asylum policyfocused organization. That's not
our expertise, that's not ourspecialty, and we wanted to make
sure that we were adding value,rather than duplicating work or
(09:33):
stepping on toes or taking over.You know, that kind of work, and
you know because our, as yousay, our kind of Human Rights
Act working group had been quitefocused on the direct threats to
the Human Rights Act. I don'tknow if anyone remembers the
Bill of Rights bill, the rightsremoval bill, as as we coined it
in civil society. It seems so solong ago that Dominic Raab was,
(09:57):
was was marching through. This,this, this bill of rights that
was gonna, you know, completelyrestructure the UK's human
rights frameworks. Andobviously, it's dead and gone
now. But we, what we did, wekind of saw that that kind of
threat to those frameworkswasn't going to go away. It was
just going to become moretargeted. And we, you know, it
(10:17):
was targeted at prisoners. Itwas targeted at, in particular,
refugees and asylum seekers. Andso, you know, we tried to kind
of draw on each other'sexpertises, and you know, we
worked with yourselves in inPils to get some of that legal
expertise on, you know, whatwill these changes mean for the
actual process of going throughand seeking asylum? And then the
(10:40):
consortium kind of contributed,okay, well, what, how does this
kind of great against thecommitments made in the Good
Friday Agreement, in the Windsorframework, slash the protocol,
or in, you know, in our web of,kind of international and
domestic human rightsframeworks. And so I think that
the two kind of focus has reallycomplemented each other. And,
(11:02):
you know, we relied heavily onPPR for that kind of ground
level, grassroots work, workingwith in particular kind of
migrant and asylum seeker ledorganizations to kind of, you
know, kind of work across thesector and across, you know,
different differentorganizational structures to get
(11:22):
buy in. We worked with Cha whohave that expertise on in
particular, you know, the CommonTravel Area, electronic Travel
Authorization. So it was, it wasa real example of that kind of
partnership working really, kindof working really well and and
everyone having their part toplay in resisting what wasn't,
(11:44):
frankly, horrendous piece oflegislation. And lo and behold,
now it's being challenged, youknow, so that's, I think, I
think we did a good job at kindof playing to each other's
strengths and and and workingtogether and across, you know,
beyond the partnership to tryand resist the bill and platform
the arguments against it,
Emma (PILS) (12:05):
because the briefing was a very visible,
tangible lobbying call. It'sstill available on both our
websites, if anybody hasn't seenthat and would like to go and
take a look that we're not justsaying we told you so, we did
indeed tell you so. But that hasall come to fruition now in that
the Commission are activelygoing to court to challenge
(12:25):
this. Our work on that, as Isaid, is maybe a little bit less
visible
Alexa Moore (12:30):
and and this case is really interesting, because
the Human Rights Commission isable to take it all off their
own back there doesn't need tobe a victim. We don't need to
wait until this whole act isimplemented and all of these
horrible things are happening tothem, be like, Oh, well, this is
bad. Stop it, please. And youknow, whenever people think of
(12:51):
the Windsor framework or theprotocol, they don't think of
human rights. No one thinks.They think of the border and the
Irish Sea and trade and tradeand this, that and the other.
But the the human rightscommitments in it are actually
really important. Um, this isthe first major case that has
been taken to kind of enforcethat commitment and to start to
kind of hash out what itactually means in the law. Um,
(13:14):
obviously it's not, it's notperfect, and no one is ever
trying to claim that it'sperfect, but hopefully it can
help us act as a kind of stopgap. So this, I think it'll be a
really important case. It'll bea really interesting case, and
it'll be kind of, it will haveimpacts down the road as well,
in terms of how that commitmentin theory is brought down into
(13:35):
practice.
Emma (PILS) (13:36):
You can see that there's a huge community working
in Northern Ireland, that is,that is really, really making
practical steps to resist anawful lot of this, the terms
drive me mad, because it justcompletely detaches from the
human reality. The hostileenvironment makes it sound like
a thing that just happened, youknow, like it was a weather
(13:58):
event that was uncontrollable.Oh, look, here comes the hostile
environment. Like, batten downthe hatches. Watch out. Whereas
it's, this is something that wasso proactively done just in
order to hold on to power. Andall the terminology just pulls
it away from the fact that thisis affecting people, yeah,
Alexa Moore (14:16):
100% and I mean, like, I think the point about
terminology is really, reallyimportant, because what we've
seen over the past, kind of56789, 10 years, is a just a
complete reframing ofdiscussions around kind of
migration, around refugees andasylum seekers, around all of
(14:37):
this. But you know, we've alsokind of, more recently, seen
quite a widespread shift interms of how, you know, refugees
and asylum seekers beingreferred to exclusively as
illegal immigrants or illegalmigrants. And, you know, I don't
know if people have noticed,it's just, it's accepted now
(14:59):
that's. That's just the termsthat people use. The illegal
migration act is not aboutquote, unquote, illegal
migration. It is aboutpreventing people from seeking
asylum. It is about shuttingdown the asylum process and
shutting down the ability ofrefugees to make a home. In the
UK, it
Emma (PILS) (15:17):
makes it sound as if there is an alternative. It
makes it sound as if there is avery well supported legal
migration scheme, you know, asif, exactly as if that hasn't
been hollowed out over the sameperiod of time.
Alexa Moore (15:33):
We all need to do everything that we can to resist
this, to push back on this, tocollaborate in whatever way that
we can to, you know, put an endto all of this, and we can't sit
in our laurels, because, youknow, the tone has been set, and
it'll take a lot of work to rollback that tone to a point where
(15:54):
we consider Everyone humans andpeople deserving of human
rights.
Emma (PILS) (16:02):
You touched on this earlier, and I think it's a
really important point to make,is that the work that both the
consortium and Pils do, becausewe are membership organizations
and we're not frontlineorganizations providing
immediate support services inthat way, we're a support
service nearly four othersupport service organizations,
(16:22):
and I think that's somethingthat's really important with how
the consortium have done theirwork, is that it involves, as
you say, at every point, refugeeled, asylum seeker led
communities and groups. I knowthe work that the PPR are doing
are is an absolute perfectexample of how that is led by
(16:43):
people. And that's the thing,and I think that's something
that's very important for us, isbecause we have access, and we
are very lucky in that we haveaccess to whether it's political
power or ourselves in the legalcommunity, whether we like it or
not, that does give that comeswith a particular influence and
a privilege and access to placesthat not everybody has access
(17:05):
to. So I think it's about usmaking sure that we use that
privilege and that access in asan effective way as possible, to
do what we can, to notnecessarily take the place of
people, but to at least where wecan get in, to keep resisting
and pushing back against that.Because it was something that I
wanted to just very quickly askyou about before we finish as
(17:26):
well, is around, because I knowyou've talked about like that,
you're a campaigner, that that'sthat's in your DNA, and that's
where, that's where your hearthas been, and that's something
definitely you can see, howyou've been able to work that
expertise into into all theroles that that you've held in
the sector, just as opposed totalk about that importance of,
(17:49):
you know, allyship, and whatgenuine allyship looks like to
you, either in a like, apersonal or a professional
sense. Because sometimes inparticular areas of work, you
know, Ally has become a termthat is used an awful lot now,
but maybe not necessarily alwaysin in the best way or in a
positive way. So I justwondered, yeah, genuine
(18:10):
allyship. What does that looklike to you when you're trying
to build momentum for acampaign? And it's,
Alexa Moore (18:19):
I guess it's hard for me to say to speak for
everyone, or to speak, you know,in particular, in this kind of
context, for refugees, asylumseekers, for kind of migrant
communities, you know, I cantell you what allyship looks
like to me, a trans person and atrans woman, in a increasingly
febrile kind of environment fortrans people in the UK, but I
(18:44):
suppose you know, when it comesto my work here on this topic,
what it has meant for me istrying my best to get people in
the room who obviously aredirectly affected by these
issues, who feel like they'reable to work on it, to kind of,
(19:06):
you know, do some, some kind ofcampaigning or advocacy, or
whatever on it, and tomeaningfully equip them to do
that. You know, we know thatthere are many organizations, as
you say, out there kind ofmigrant or refugee, asylum
seeker led organizations whofundamentally don't have the
(19:26):
capacity to do so much of thiswork, like they are. They're
swamped trying to kind ofsupport individuals, support
their communities. And you know,it was the same when I was
running a trans organization,like we're like, obviously, we
were trying to do campaigning,we were trying to do that
advocacy, but so much of ourwork is firefighting, and so
much of the work is, you know,supporting individuals to access
(19:50):
welfare or to access housing orto, you know, trying to
Emma (PILS) (19:54):
get access to health care, like, good luck.
You know, good luck.
Alexa Moore (19:58):
Geez Louise um. So, you know, I think a significant
kind of amount of of whatallyship is, in particular, kind
of in the NGO space, is to tryto build that capacity and to
lend your capacity where youhave it again, people who are
living this just don't have,don't have the time, don't have
(20:20):
the energy don't, you know, alot of times, just don't want
to, you know, because it'sbloody horrible. And again, from
my own perspective, working ontrans healthcare and being a
trans person, not being able toaccess healthcare, that was
demoralizing and horrible, youknow, like it just is. So all
that we can do is put our wholeweight into supporting the
(20:43):
organizations and resisting thatkind of regression of rights,
and to do that, and to not belike, Oh, look at me. I'm
resisting human rightsregression. Woo, aren't I?
Class, you know, to actually tryand give a platform to, you
(21:04):
know, people who are affected bythis. It's, I, I'm always
conflicted about, because it's,it's, you know, it's, it's so
much of it is, like, if youclaim to be an ally, Well, geez,
like, you know you're gonna,you're gonna have to prove it,
because everyone can claim to bean ally, you know, like I can
sit here and claim to be an allyto whoever, but if you're not
(21:27):
doing the work, then what's thepoint? You know? And all we can
do is our best to try and kindof resist that right regression,
to try and bring people into theroom to try and lend our
capacity and support andresources where we can I'm
Emma (PILS) (21:47):
so glad that I got a chance to chat to you, though,
because that the consideredanswer that you just gave, I
think is a perfect example ofwhy I wanted you on the podcast
in the first place. Couldhonestly just sit and talk to
you all day about this. Onething I actually should have
mentioned during the podcast aswell is, in addition to being a
(22:09):
campaigner, lobbyistextraordinaire, Alexa Moore was
also our set dance guru thisthis past year when we held a
residential in Belfast and Alexaled ourselves in a room full of
lawyers and campaigners with atfellow legal hubs across the UK
(22:29):
in a set dance icebreaker, whichI think was probably my favorite
moment of the past 12
Alexa Moore (22:34):
months. I'm so glad to hear that. I'm delighted, and
everyone seemed to really enjoyit. I was terrified. I was
absolutely I just like, youknow, looking around. I was, I
was sitting next to AlisonKilpatrick, the chief
commissioner of the Human RightsCommission. I was like, Okay,
how do I get everyone here toset that, to get up and
(22:56):
enthusiastically, to hold handsand skip across the floor. And,
you know, it went really well.I've been, I've been set dancing
for like, the past 10 years. Mygranny got me into it. And,
yeah, I've been running a class.I started, I started it in april
(23:16):
2022, for almost two years,yeah. And it's been absolutely
fabulous. I really enjoy andtrying to get more kind of young
people, more LGBT people, intoset dancing, which, you know,
it's, it's it could do with abit of diversification in the
demographic. I think that's so,yeah, I run that class in the
(23:38):
Mac every, every few weeks,every two weeks, usually. So if
you go on to the the MAXwebsite, the Mac Belfast, you
can find information about that.We
Emma (PILS) (23:48):
will put a link to that in the show notes as well.
I've always wanted to say thatof that link in the show notes,
but we will put a link in theshow notes. So whenever you are
listening to this episode, youcan find out when the next class
is on, if you want to whetheryou are a previous set dancer or
whether you are a newbie to theset dance community. Thank you
(24:10):
so much. Alexa, no, it's been anabsolute pleasure. And yeah, we
will miss you within the wallsof community house on a daily
basis, but we will not be sayinggoodbye. No, we will not be
saying goodbye. And yeah, justwe the Pils team. We're
recording this in the Pilsoffice. The Pils team. Just want
(24:31):
to wish you all the success andgood fortune and all the
positive things for your nextrole. And who knows, we might
just nab you and get you back infor a future episode to talk
about that and pick your brainson all things LGBT equality,
queer emancipation related inthe north of Ireland. Gorgeous,
Alexa Moore (24:50):
I can't wait, lovely. Thank you.
Emma (PILS) (24:52):
Thank you so so much.
Unknown (24:53):
Thank you so much.
Emma (PILS) (25:16):
Um, but again, thank you, Niall for being part
of our podcast series numberone, and just wanted, I suppose,
to give you the opportunity tostart off and introduce yourself
first, because myself and Hilaryknow you very well, as are
updated neighbor and theresearch officer with the Human
(25:37):
Rights Consortium. But thismight be the first time that
people listening to the Pilsproject have heard your voice.
So just want to start off bysaying, Niall, please introduce
yourself and your role at theconsortium. Yes.
Niall Robb (25:53):
So my name is Niall Rob, and I'm the Research
Officer here in the Human RightsConsortium. I have taken over
from Alexa, who I think you mayhave heard from earlier in the
podcast, I lead on the work thatthe consortium does on exiting
the European Union on Brexit,and I'm involved quite heavily
(26:15):
in the work on the Human RightsAct and the ECHR. So that brings
me into contact with the Pilsproject, through some of the
work on the illegal migrationact, on the Rwanda act, and on
that general rights rollbackthat the UK Government is
(26:38):
committed to at this moment intime before this, I did a PhD at
Queen's, and I am due to defendsoon. And apart from that, I've
worked as a civil servant and inthe third sector before this. So
(26:58):
I have a background in politicsand political science. So I
bring a research focus into theinto the role and and and draw
together briefing papers andstatements, any of that kind of
stuff for the for the consortiumand that we use in our advocacy
(27:19):
and in our lobbying on those,those, those topics and and
wider, because the work of theconsortium is is quite broad. We
are, like yourselves, a memberorganization, and we have 165
member organizations from acrossNorthern Ireland of different
sizes, working at policy leveland working at the grassroots.
(27:43):
And we convene as part of ourwork three working groups, one
on the Bill of Rights, one onBrexit and human rights, and a
third, which we co convene withyou as the Human Rights Act
Working Group, which is a groupof organizations and academics.
Unknown (28:07):
Also my co host on the podcast today is, of course, my
colleague, Hilary Perry, who hasbeen part of an awful lot of the
work, particularly over thelast, I suppose, 12 months in
particular, both with Alexa and,of course, now with yourself,
Niall that there has been quitea few issues, as you mentioned,
that we have been working ontogether.
Hilary PILS (28:29):
So I think Niles already highlighted a lot of the
places where our work hasoverlapped, and it's largely
been on the illegal migrationact. And that would have been
work that I did primarily withAlexa, and now on the safety of
Rwanda act. And so obviously,we've had a really successful
(28:50):
challenge here in NorthernIreland on the illegal migration
act. And that was one of thecases on which the human rights
consortium and Pils iscooperation really facilitated
assisting with that challenge.And so Niles made reference to
(29:10):
the Human Rights Act WorkingGroup, which we co convene
together, and we had the HumanRights Commission come to that
group, and they did a reallygood job of engaging with civil
society, and they wanted tospeak to members of the group
about the kind of evidence thatwould be useful to them in the
illegal migration act challenge.And so we spoke with them as
(29:34):
separately as Pils and the humanrights Consortium. Then we spoke
with them as part of the workinggroup as well, and we concluded
that some of the evidence thatwould be really useful for the
commission was evidence aroundthe safety of particular
countries that were listed onthe safe countries list in the
(29:55):
illegal migration act. And so Iknow it's been a while since.
Maybe the illegal migration Acthas been at the forefront of
everyone's mind. So the illegalmigration act essentially
replaced the asylum system inthe UK with a mandatory
detention and removal scheme forany individual arriving in the
(30:19):
UK to seek asylum, and now a lotof those provisions haven't
actually come into effect, butthe case was a challenge to that
act nonetheless, and it was ableto proceed. And really one of
the grounds that the commissionwanted to highlight in that case
was that all of those boundarieson the list are not, in fact,
(30:41):
safe. And so our Polly Kate hasset up this really great scheme
called the country of originscheme, and it is done with
Clifford chance. And so the wayit works is that members of Pils
can come to us and requestinformation on a particular
(31:07):
country so say a firm wasbringing a challenge for an
asylum seeker here, they couldcome to us and ask for a report
on the Safety of that countrybased on that person's
individual circumstances. And sowhat the commission did was they
said, This is the kind ofinformation that would be really
(31:28):
useful to us. And so the HumanRights consortium, who is a
member of Pils, put in anapplication to support the Human
Rights Commission's challenge,and so we were able to obtain
six different really lengthy anddetailed reports on countries on
(31:49):
that safe country list. So we'vegotten feedback from the
Commission that have said thatthat information was really,
really useful in the challengethat the judge referred to that
evidence and then it did reallyhelp advance and facilitate that
successful challenge,
Niall Robb (32:10):
I think, in a sense, that goes to show just how
natural and and fitting that thecooperation is in that we can do
some of that capacity building,research, campaigning, advocacy
(32:31):
type stuff with the lead fromthe Human Rights Consortium, and
then we can have the judicialoversight, any kind of
engagement with with the courtsand so on from the Pils side,
and using that legal expertisethat you have so certainly,
(32:51):
given my background, I'm awareof the value of collaboration
coming from academia, and youknow, very keen to keep to keep
those two strands working, wherewe're collaborating together.
Emma (PILS) (33:09):
And so I suppose from Pils project, we are a
litigation focused organization.And so I think that what we're
seeing with the safety of RwandaAct and the way that we're
coordinating with the HumanRights consortium now is that
hopefully we might be able tofacilitate a similar kind of
(33:32):
cooperation between ourselves,the Consortium, and the members
of the working group who mighthave Some of the evidence that
would be needed to bring thesekinds of challenges and and so
we're still in early stages onthe safety of Rwanda act, but
(33:52):
we're hoping that the kind ofcooperation that we had on the
illegal migration act might beable To be replicated on the
Rwanda act as well,
Niall Robb (34:03):
in terms of work that we've delivered together,
we wrote a letter to the primeminister as the Rwanda act, then
Bill was moving throughParliament, signed by a number
of our working group members,And the process of drawing that
letter together again, showedthe benefit of collaboration in
(34:25):
that we had an initial draft,and then the Pils project with
Hilary was able to add in legalexpertise to that to really
strengthen The letter, so thatwhat we were sending off was
greater than the sum of itsparts. I think we've just
(34:47):
received a response to thatletter, so we'll have to digest
that and see if we want to goback. So yeah, I think that's
the key point. Is the realbenefit of collaboration there
between. Two organizations. Itobviously comes from the example
that Hilary's given of the rolein the illegal migration act.
(35:09):
Case is one that predates myinvolvement with the consortium,
but certainly is one that thatshows the strength of that
collaboration and the rationalefor continuing that
Unknown (35:24):
so much of our work, I think, in the Human Rights
sector, can be reactive. And youknow, we've realized that over
the past few years, a lot of itis in reaction to negative
developments, whereas it'sactually really nice for us to
be able to sit down together,albeit virtually, that could
reflect on that positivesuccess. So that's a very nice
thing too.
Niall Robb (35:44):
Yeah, certainly I mentioned earlier that the work
of the consortium is is quitebroad. So as an organization, we
also organize a human rightsFestival this year. It's from
the second of December to the10th of December. So that goes
across the third of December,which is United Nations
(36:07):
International Day of Personswith Disabilities, and then also
Human Rights Day on the 10th ofDecember. So we help to organize
events that showcase humanrights in Northern Ireland. So
those are some of the thingsthat we do in the consortium,
(36:27):
and some of the work that wehave, you know, moving forward,
trying to think if there'sanything else that I need to
mention at this point, but Ithink I've mentioned quite a
lot.
Unknown (36:39):
So thank you very much now,
Niall Robb (36:41):
not at all
Unknown (36:44):
well. Thanks Hilary as well for being my co host.
Emma (PILS) (36:47):
Hey, no problem, I did none of the heavy lifting.
So thank you. This episode was areal joy to record and the human
rights sector, so often we endup fighting fires, spinning
plates, whatever workplacemetaphor you prefer, that we
(37:10):
rarely take the time to sit downand have a chance to fully
absorb the successes. So Ireally hope this episode was a
useful insight into how humanrights organizations, even ones
with very diverse approaches tochange making, can actually
combine that expertise to createsolutions that ultimately are
(37:30):
greater than the sum of theirparts. And if you are an
immigration practitionerlistening to this episode and
are interested in availing ofour country of origin
information support service,please go to pilsni.org That's
pilsni.org for all the ways toconnect with us. Join us next
(37:50):
time on to be fair, ni to meetanother of our human rights
partnership colleagues, theCommittee on the administration
of justice. Talk to you soon.You to be fair. Ni is a podcast
series created by the PublicInterest Litigation Support
Project. Editing of this episodeis by me. Emma Cassidy, stay
(38:16):
tuned for more conversationswith the activists and allies
using the law to change lives inNorthern Ireland. I.
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