FLJS and Aspen Institute Lecture: Detention without Trial in Wartime Britain

The lecture argues that the courts largely abandoned any role in protecting civil liberty, on the ground that, under the emergency legislation of the time, this was not their responsibility. It goes on to explain how the ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights, and its incorporation into domestic law under the Human Rights Act of 1998, has radically altered the position, though the inherent problems involved when regular courts become involved in monitoring the activities of security services in times of crisis have not gone away.