This chapter turns from judges to human rights lawyers, whose role as advocates gives rise either to different problems or to the same ones in more overt form. It focuses on writings intended for the general public by Shami Chakrabarti, Conor Gearty, and Anthony Lester. All three are publicly prominent British lawyers, whose views echo and amplify those reported in previous chapters from judges in Strasbourg and Ottawa, and from Human Rights Watch in New York. The chapter argues that their advocacy for the rights of individuals is vitiated by habitual cynicism toward government, and a constantly deaf ear to its genuine concerns. Since it cannot persuade sceptics, this is poor advocacy. Moreover, since it is widely acknowledged in principle that few rights are absolute and unconditional, it follows that there are circumstances when it would be proportionate for rights to be limited or suspended, or not to be extended. Therefore, human rights lawyers should be more willing than are these three to think about what those circumstances would be, and to recognise them when they obtain, instead of treating every concession to circumstance as if it were a grubby betrayal of principle. A defence of rights that fully accepted that imperfect compromise can really be inevitable, and that acknowledged that sometimes the claims of the social good really do justify exposing individuals to greater risk, would be a more honest defence, and much the stronger for it.
Introduction: Symposium on the Social Practice of Human Rights