Instead the usual people at Policy Exchange are actively trying to re-write the narrative about Britain's involvement in the creation of the ECHR, turning withdrawal into a 'legitimate' option for conservatives to have. Of course they don't mention Fyfe was a prosecutor at Nuremberg, for example - ThreadSky

paolosandro.bsky.social • 9 days ago

Instead the usual people at Policy Exchange are actively trying to re-write the narrative about Britain's involvement in the creation of the ECHR, turning withdrawal into a 'legitimate' option for conservatives to have. Of course they don't mention Fyfe was a prosecutor at Nuremberg, for example

Reposted from James Cooray Smith

One of those times where it's necessary to point out that drafting the ECHR was led by David Maxwell Fyfe, a Scottish Conservative MP for Liverpool, MacMillan's Home Secretary and a prosecutor at Nuremberg. A functional party would trumpet it as a great Conservative achievement in the rule of law.

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spinninghugo.bsky.social•6 days ago

I've not read this PE thing, but the idea Maxwell-Fyfe had much input into the drafting is untrue.

See
N Duxbury, Viscount Kilmuir (2015)
and
AWB Simpson, Human Rights and the End of Empire (2004)

/1

spinninghugo.bsky.social•6 days ago

Maxwell-Fyfe was a good barrister, his performance at Nuremberg was much better than that of the Americans, but he wasn't exactly amongst the brightest and best lawyers.

/2

spinninghugo.bsky.social•6 days ago

Lauterpacht had far more impact on the draft that eventuated, as did (somewhat embarrassingly) earlier European constitutional documents (as is apparent from the text).

/3

spinninghugo.bsky.social•6 days ago

The reason for the (mild) support of the Tories at the time was they thought that UK law was obviously compliant anyway, and so nothing to see, the text was just a political document, and a useful way of creating a distinction from the Soviet Union.

/4

spinninghugo.bsky.social•6 days ago

It isn't a coincidence that the collapse of support for the ECHR on the Tory right coincided with the collapse of the Berlin wall. The geopolitical justification for it was gone in their eyes.

/5

spinninghugo.bsky.social•6 days ago

Focussing on Maxwell -Fyfe is misleading in another way. Because he was a prosecutor at Nuremberg, the impression gets created that what drove the agreement for the ECHR was the holocaust, and a UK desire to stop it happening again.

/6

mwhoyle96.bsky.social•6 days ago

What does that prove exactly?

yuanyiz.bsky.social•6 days ago

It certainly doesn't disprove, for instance, the fact that Maxwell Fyfe opposed British adhesion to the Strasbourg court or individual access to the Council when he was a minister.

yuanyiz.bsky.social•6 days ago

Or the fact that the Tories considered withdrawing as early as 1957.

yuanyiz.bsky.social•6 days ago

But if Kilmuir's time at the IMT in Nuremberg makes him, in the eyes of Paolo, an automatic paragon of morality, I have bad news about the Soviet lawyers who were his colleagues.

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