The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

24 The United Kingdom and Human Rights Thinking
United States of America, review on grounds of
constitutionality. Again, in the British colonies of
settlement (where Europeans in large measure displaced
the indigenous population) the right of the people
collectively to govern themselves and to choose their
system of government and their rulers was first put into
practice. It then became a prevailing idea.
Still remaining within the world of theory, it is also
important to note that, initially in England and then to a
far greater extent in Scotland, with such ideas being
further elaborated by the mid-18th century French
Physiocrats, there developed the science of Political
Economy. This originally dealt with the household
management of the state, its political arithmetic and how
economic matters were best organised in the private and
the public interest to ensure the material well-being of
men in society. Those ideas and their consequences
affect us all daily. As Keynes has said:
"The ideas of economists and political philosophers,
both when they are right and when they are wrong,
are more powerful than is commonly understood.
Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men,
who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any
intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some
defunct economist." 25
The Contribution of English Law and Administrative
Practice
The third strand of the contribution to human rights
arose from English judicial decisions, 26 British laws and
British 16th and 17th century developments. Some
continental advocates of reform (for examples, Montesquieu
and Voltaire) perceived British constitutional