Governing After the Human Rights Act
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.00264 |
REVIEW ARTICLES
Governing After the Human Rights Act
Maleiha Malik*
Davina Cooper,Governing Out of Order: Space, Law and the Politics of
Belonging, London: Rivers Oram Press, 1998, xiv + 242 pp, pb £14.95.
‘Governing Out of Order presents a series of images of governmentality at the
close of the twentieth century’ (p 167) . In this collection, Davina Cooper has
assembled a pastiche of six high profile political conflicts from the 1980s and ’90s
which provides an opportunity to reflect on our recent past and the future form of
democracy in the United Kingdom. Cooper states: ‘Claims of a crisis in Western
governance have become ubiquitous: welfare provisions can no longer be
sustained; political authority and legitimacy are in decline; the state as we know
it is in jeopardy’ (p 3). Part of the solution, she argues, lies in the reform of existing
institutions along the lines developed in her principles for ‘governing out of order.’
The present government has preferred a different route for modernisation. The
centrepiece of their reform has been the incorporation of the European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic law. On introducing the Human Rights
Bill in the House of Commons, the Home Secretary Mr Jack Straw described it as
‘a key component of our drive to modernise our society and refresh our
democracy’1and stated that ‘It will strengthen representative and democratic
government’.2Governing Out of Order, published in the same year as the
enactment of the Human Rights Act (HRA), points towards a very different
conclusion. Cooper’s essays suggest that judicially enforced human rights are
unlikely to be a panacea for the disenchantment which she identifies as a recurring
feature of politics in the 1980s and ’90s.
Governing out of order
There is a graceful symmetry to Governing Out of Order. Six case studies form the
heart of the book and present the reader with a diverse range of events. Governing
Identities (part two) includes an analysis of the Parliamentary debates following
the Spain–Canada fish war in 1994 and provide an opportunity to discuss national
identity, community and what it means to ‘be British’ (ch 2). This theme is
developed by exploring the British government’s legislative attempt to reassert
Christianity as the basis for a nation-state via the Education Reform Act 1988 (ch
3). Challenging Inequalities (part three) shifts the focus away from issues of
ßThe Modern Law Review Limited 2000 (MLR 63:2, March). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 281
* School of Law, King’s College, London. I would like to thank Conor Gearty, Aileen McColgan, Adam
Tomkins, Rob Wintemute, and Khuram Yousaf for their assistance.
1 306 HC 782–783 (February 16, 1998).
2ibid 769.
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